Before and After
by Muphrid
Summary: Starting with the 12th Angel, join Rei as she explores human nature, making bonds to assert her own humanity that isn't there, but even as something inhuman, one can find a purpose and embrace it. She can become a person and find the will to live.
1. After Leliel

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**After Leliel**

_Chapter One_

"Do you know why you're here?"

The room was bright. It usually is. Light streamed through the windows, hot and white, like the glare of the sun off a skyscraper. It's always hot above ground, even when it rains. I don't know how so much light reaches here. Mirrors, I've heard, but I've never seen them. Once, when I waited here before, I met a janitor. He wiped down the windows with a damp cloth and dabbed the sweat from his brow onto his shirt sleeve. "It's like they captured a thousand fireflies and stuffed them in a bottle," he said. "Caged them up and focused all their light on this room."

"I didn't know there were bottles big enough for that," I said.

The janitor made no reply.

"It displeases me to return so suddenly," said the Commander. "Conferences over budgets and finances can be delayed only so much before the politicians take too much interest. You agree, Fuyutsuki?"

"I do."

"I had hoped, after the Tenth Angel, that my round-the-clock presence would not be required. Perhaps my trust in Major Katsuragi was misplaced."

"If I may?" said the Vice Commander.

"Go ahead."

"Given how little we knew of this angel, I think we were fortunate. There is minimal damage to the city, the Geofront was never in jeopardy, and Unit-01 has been recovered."

"Indeed," said the Commander. "We were 'fortunate.' Neither Major Katsuragi nor Doctor Akagi could've anticipated that Unit-01 would burst from the angel's shadow." His eyes flickered behind his shaded glasses. "Don't you agree?"

The Vice Commander was silent.

"Rei," said the Commander. "Don't you agree?"

I nodded once.

"Do you know why you're here?"

I pulled out a small square of paper. " 'Report to Commander Ikari's office as soon as possible.' It doesn't say why."

"When did you receive this order?"

"1530 hours."

"What time is it now?"

"1645 hours."

"Did you report to me as soon as possible?"

"Yes."

"Explain what delayed you an hour and fifteen minutes."

"I believed you wished a report on the incident. I felt Ikari-kun's condition would be pertinent to that report."

"As you said, the order doesn't specify the reason. Pilot Ikari's condition is of no interest to me. Why did you delay?"

"Ikari-kun did not awaken until 1620—"

"Why did you delay?"

Why is it relevant?

"That," said the Commander, "is what concerns me now, Rei. Your behavior throughout this incident has been peculiar."

I don't recall being peculiar.

"You countermanded Major Katsuragi's order to return to base."

"I observed that Unit-01 and Ikari-kun were still trapped within the angel. To retreat would've been to abandon them."

"You disobeyed an order from a superior."

"I clarified the situation."

"You felt Major Katsuragi required clarification?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't clear to her that the Twelfth Angel had absorbed Unit-01?"

"That was clear."

"Then what, precisely, required clarification?"

I didn't answer.

"I see," said the Commander. "I understand you also engaged in a confrontation with Pilot Sōryū."

"We exchanged words."

"To the point that Major Katsuragi had to intervene?"

"Her intervention was not required."

"Explain."

"Pilot Sōryū belittled Ikari-kun for falling into the angel's trap. I believe she took pleasure knowing he made a mistake. I only asked her why she piloted Eva if that were so."

"Her criticism of Pilot Ikari—you find it inaccurate?"

"Sir?"

"You believe she misjudged in thinking Pilot Ikari's increased confidence made him more susceptible to error?"

"I believe that, had I or Pilot Sōryū been on point, each of us would've fallen into the trap the way Ikari-kun did. Hence I found Pilot Sōryū's assessment … incomplete."

The Commander leaned forward. His hands formed a bridge, and his mouth moved below them. "I've considered that relations between the pilots may retard our efforts to fight the angels. Do you think that concern valid?"

I nodded.

"Why?"

"I believe, were it not for this incident, Ikari-kun's synch scores would've continued to improve. In spite of Pilot Sōryū's influence, he responds well to positive reinforcement. You could help in that regard."

"I'm not interested in positive reinforcement. Remember who and what you are, Rei. You must remain apart from them."

"I am."

The Commander blinked. "You are certain?"

"Yes."

He motioned to the Vice Commander. "Fuyutsuki."

Click. I noticed an SDAT player on the desk, already set to _play_.

"Don't touch me like that!" The voice belonged to Lieutenant Ibuki. "I'm ticklish there!"

"Oh, you mean like this?" The second voice was a man's, but over Lieutenant Ibuki's commotion, I couldn't recognize him.

"Stop it! Keep this up, and I won't let you—hey, what's this? A tape recorder?"

"No! What makes you think that?"

A crash. Banging. Glass shattered.

Click. Vice Commander Fuyutsuki popped open the SDAT player and placed the tape on the desk. "I'm dreadfully sorry, Ikari."

"That is a separate disciplinary matter," said the Commander. "Mention it to no one, _especially_ Major Katsuragi."

I blinked. "Yes…"

The Vice Commander inserted a new tape, and this time, there was a familiar background hum.

"Pattern Blue!" Lieutenant Hyūga's voice came through the speaker. "Angel detected directly beneath Unit-01!"

"A shadow?" Ikari-kun shot three times, the bullets booming in the distance. "What _is_ this thing?" he said. "Something's wrong here!"

"Shinji-kun, get out of there!" said Major Katsuragi. "Shinji-kun!"

"Ikari-kun!"

Is that … my voice? I didn't realize I'd said anything.

"Idiot!" said Sōryū. "What do you think you're doing?"

The Commander hit _stop_. The sounds of battle ceased. "You called out to him," he said.

"I did."

"Why?"

I'm not certain. Was it reflex? Instinct? What could I tell Ikari-kun that he didn't already know?

"These attachments," said the Commander, "they cannot interfere with your piloting duties. If they do, I will put a stop to them myself."

Attachments?

"Do I make myself clear?"

No. "Yes."

"Very well then. You may go."

But why am I here?

"The Vice Commander and I have matters to discuss."

I bowed once to both of them and made my way out by the access elevator. The Commander's word is the word of God here. You don't question it. You don't disobey it. The Commander knows things you don't know. The Commander sees what you don't see.

Why did I object to the major's order?

Why did I confront Pilot Sōryū?

Why did I call out to Ikari-kun?

The Commander suspects something. He thinks I've become too attached? I don't know how or why that could be. I've never lied to the Commander. He rescued me, he earned my trust, and yet, I couldn't tell him the truth today. There must be a reason for things—a reason and a purpose—but I don't know them.

Perhaps this is something a person would understand. I'm not a person, you see. People smile and laugh and cry. I smile sometimes. I don't laugh. I don't cry. These expressions often contradict each other. I've been told one should laugh at things that are funny or amusing, that one can laugh when a situation is merely uncomfortable, that laughter can deride or bully people into submission. Many emotions, many intentions, but just one expression. Better, I think, to show no expression at all. When nothing about one's face or eyes betrays what goes on beneath, the expression one shows cannot be wrong.

That's not why I'm not a person, though. My lack of expression is but a symptom, for which there exists a deeper cause. Doctor Akagi showed me once, on her computer, what I truly am.

The footage was short—under a minute in length. One of the scientists put on a protective suit. Everyone else—Commander Ikari, Vice Commander Fuyutsuki, Doctor Akagi—stood behind glass. Even little Ikari-kun watched as the scientist approached Unit-01 with her probe, ready to touch the core of an angel, a god.

I saw her face, frozen on the screen at the end of the clip. She has my face.

No, I have it wrong. I have her face. The hair and the eyes are different, but I have her face.

Why?

I live for a purpose. The Commander has a plan for me, for humanity, and I will fulfill that destiny. Then, and only then, will I return to the nothingness from which I came.

I think I am the second.

Until that time, I live, as much as I am forced to, yet now the Commander doubts me.

Why?

The level indicator on the elevator clicked with each floor passed. It clicked until it could click no more, until I reached the ground level.

The doors opened. There was light—cold and white, artificial, fluorescent. A young woman spun the spokes of her wheelchair, pushing herself down the hall. A man with a stethoscope took a nurse aside and argued over a clipboard. I've been to this place before.

The Commander asked me questions, questions for which I had no answer. Only a person could answer those questions. Only a person could help me discover the answers.

Only one person, the one at the focus of Commander Ikari's interest.

"Ayanami?"

His son, Ikari-kun. He lay in bed, in a hospital gown. The sun's light flooded the room, so bright that it paled his brown hair. His eyes seemed almost gray.

"I didn't expect to see you again," he said. "At least, not so soon."

"I have no other duties to attend to," I said. "My report did not last as long as I expected."

"Ah, is that where Asuka went, too?"

"No. She spoke with you?"

"Just for a second. She poked her head in the door and said, 'This is what happens when you confuse good test scores with real battle instinct, see? I hope you've learned from this, Shinji. Next time you should let me or Miss Perfect take point! ' " He laughed. "She left before I could argue. It's probably better that way."

"That is amusing?" I said.

"Well, maybe not, but that's Asuka. She likes to win at everything, and I don't mind. It makes her happy."

"That I don't doubt."

"Eh?" Ikari-kun sat up, studying me. "Did something happen between you and Asuka?"

Strange. Ikari-kun has a habit of trying to make things easier for people. He is compliant. He pilots Eva because he is needed for it. It is _not_ what he wants in and of itself. Sometimes I wonder what Ikari-kun does want.

And now, I came to him with questions. Even without knowing this, Ikari-kun made it easier for me to broach the subject.

I sat in the chair at his bedside, the chair that I left not half an hour before. "After you disappeared into the angel's body, Sōryū and I had a confrontation."

Ikari-kun gaped. "You got in a fight? With Asuka? Are you hurt?"

"We only exchanged words."

"Oh." He frowned. "Did she say something about my father?"

"The Commander? No, why do you ask?"

He rubbed his cheek. "Well, I can't think of anything else that would anger you."

Anger?

I was … angry?

Why should I resent her remarks when they weren't directed at me? She did not insult me. She only insulted him, yet I challenged her for it, all the same. I got close to her, within arm's reach, close enough to feel her pride, her haughtiness, close enough to see the smirk on her lips.

Close enough to slap her. If the major hadn't stepped in, I think I would've slapped Pilot Sōryū. She showed Ikari-kun no respect.

Just as he showed his father no respect. I slapped him for that, and I think he feels the same way, even now. He disrespects his father, yet I know to Ikari-kun the Commander is important. In piloting, he hopes for praise—he's said as much. He earns that praise time and again, but he seldom receives it, certainly not from Sōryū. Even when he saves her, she berates him.

Even when he saved me, I didn't praise him, but I did smile. Is that enough?

Perhaps then it was, but not now.

"Ikari-kun, you made a mistake," I said.

"Huh?"

"Engaging the angel before Pilot Sōryū and I were in position to back you up. You were hasty."

"Ah…" He looked down, at the blankets. "I guess you're right."

"But you did well to survive in the angel's trap as long as you did. You escaped. You persevered."

"It's nothing I did," he said. "I hardly remember breaking out of there. I'm not sure how I did it."

"I don't think the _how_ matters."

"Maybe you're right." He glanced at the ceiling. "I wish they'd let me go now. I feel fine."

"You should rest."

"I'm not tired. I was going a little crazy before you came back; there's not a lot to do around here." He motioned to the far corner. "No television, not that it would do much good."

I looked to the end-table. "There's a radio."

"Sort of." He turned the dial, passing through static to a station.

"… the current state of emergency, all frequencies are unavailable until further notice. We apologize for the inconvenience. Repeat: due to the current state of emergency—"

He spun the volume dial, clicking the radio off.

"There's still much of the Twelfth Angel to clean up," I said. "That information is sensitive."

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe Misato-san will stop by. Even if I just had my SDAT, it'd be better than nothing." He looked out the window. "Than silence."

"You dislike silence?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

Perhaps. I'm not certain I know what silence is. When I go home, men in hard hats pull windows from their frames. Bombs rattle in the distance; pistons pound in rhythm. Even at night, there are sirens. Floorboards creak.

I opened my bag. "I have books."

"Books?"

"To read."

"Well, yes. What books?"

I held out the first.

" 'Evolutionary genetics'? Ah, not exactly my thing."

I nodded. "A textbook is inappropriate. I do have something else, though." I showed him another book—smaller, a paperback.

"Really? English stuff?"

"It is part of our literature assignment. We received it today."

"Oh. I guess it'd be good to get a head start, then, but…"

"But?"

"Ayanami's still here. It'd be rude if I started reading in front of you."

"I do not mind."

"Still…"

I would be content to sit here as you read. Perhaps then I may learn what the Commander fears, why he thinks I've changed around you. I have changed, have I not? We all change. What we eat becomes a part of us. Dead skin sloughs off and turns to dust, but it's not my body that's different, is it. Before, there was only the Commander. Now…

"I could read to you."

He eyed me curiously. "Are you sure?"

I nodded.

"Oh, well, if you like."

I opened the book, flipping to the first page. In truth, I'd read none of this either. I don't care for stories, for things that are lies, but I know people do. People want a life, a world, that isn't their own. I don't see why. No one has the power to change their fate, to make those stories true, but the appeal must remain.

Ikari-kun lay back, awaiting the start, and I obliged him.

" 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…' "

These are not my words, so I can't accept the contradiction inherent to them. How could it be both the best and worst of times? How can one be wise yet foolish? Perhaps it was common thinking then, in the nineteenth century. I cannot say.

As I read to Ikari-kun, he seldom stirred. He buried himself in the blankets, lying face-up. His eyes closed; his face was blank. I've watched Ikari-kun sleep before, and not just today, either. Then and before, when he slept, I thought the expression bore some trace of pain. I cannot be certain. I don't read faces and emotions well, but then, if a person's face can be made to show what they truly feel, will it not when they sleep, when they can't twist their muscles or cover their feelings with deception?

Ikari-kun looks pained when he sleeps, and I don't think that means he dislikes sleeping. I think he dislikes living, as I do.

But this day was different. I read the book to him, and Ikari-kun relaxed, peaceful, tranquil. It's odd to see him this way. I don't think I've seen him like this before.

"Ayanami?"

"Yes?"

"You stopped."

I looked down, at the pages. "The Night Shadows," read the header at the top, yet the words were unfamiliar to me. I must've paused when I finished the last chapter.

"I'm sorry. I'll continue if you wish, but I'm not certain I'm doing well."

"Doing well?"

"There are many characters. I don't think I have the right range of expression to make them suitably different."

He chuckled. "You're doing fine. You may not realize it, but you're putting a lot of energy into this. I like it."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

My cheeks felt hot. I turned away from him. Perhaps he wouldn't notice.

"I think, if you have children someday, they'll like how you read. It's soothing."

Children?

"It sort of reminds me of Mother, before she…"

Before she died?

Before I became her?

"Ayanami? Is something the matter?"

No, Ikari-kun, you are correct. I remind you of your mother because I have her voice, her face, but I am not your mother. I cannot be your mother. I am not a person; I am a thing, a shell. Your mother's body is my shell.

I stood up.

"Hey, Ayanami!" He was beside me. When did he get out of bed? "Are you all right?" He held me by the elbow and tugged lightly. "Did I say something wrong?"

My eyes focused on him. "No, it's not your fault," I said. "I must go." I removed his hand and left the book on his bed. "You may keep it as long as you stay. After that, I must ask you to buy your own." I made for the door.

"Ayanami, wait."

I paused, facing the hall. "Yes?"

"Thank you, for today," he said. "For saying it was okay, even though I made a mistake."

"I spoke the truth as I see it."

"And for the book," he said. "Thank you, again."

I nodded. "Goodbye, Ikari-kun."

He winced. "Ayanami…"

"Forgive me." I turned to face him, meeting his gaze. "See you … tomorrow."

"Yeah," he said. "Tomorrow then."

I shut the door. It's unfair to Ikari-kun, I know, but I couldn't stay. I didn't want to stay. Is this why the Commander warned me? Did he think, somehow, I'd begun imitating Ikari Yui? That my attention for her son was too similar to her own?

I wish to sleep now. Sleep is the closest I can be to nothingness, and yet … I find I still don't understand what's happened today. I have ideas and theories, but I cannot be certain. I'm certain of less and less every time we fight an angel. I may not enjoy living, but the Commander thought this important. He thought it important enough to question me, to try to understand me.

And if the Commander thinks it important, then I should devote some time to the problem as well.

When I returned home, I retrieved a notebook from my school bag. It was unused, pristine: I don't take notes at school. I flipped to the first page and uncapped a pen. I don't have a desk, so I sat on my bed, placing the notebook in my lap.

" 'Do you know why you're here?' "

No, Commander.

I only have ink on my hands.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

As I started watching _Neon Genesis Evangelion_, I began to realize how truly subtle the series is at times. Though at its most philosophical the series can be blunt as an anvil, there's a lot left to be figured out, and often, these questions have no right answers, only the answers you choose to believe.

That's basically what this story is. Over the course of the series, we see Rei increasingly distant from Gendō, and more and more she allows Shinji to replace Gendō in her heart, but I always wondered—why is that? A lot of the acts that drive that are small, and Rei, being Rei, does not make her thought processes well-known. She's very opaque.

This story is, perhaps, just one possible path for Rei to evolve and grow "behind the scenes." For the most part, I will avoid scenes that depict only what happened in the series; I've seen that done before in fics with little to no alteration or added context, and the last thing we need is to see things we already know (though I also know there will likely be a point when I break this rule).

I will be up-front now, though: I don't intend to outright contradict canon, although I may be liberal in bending it or filling in gaps, adding interpretations of events as I see fit. What it does mean is that, in some respects, the ending of this story is a foregone conclusion. As I said, I don't intend to outright change events, only paint them with a different (and I hope, intriguing) context.

That's a bit on what to expect. With each chapter, I usually put my thoughts on the piece in a post on my blog, westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com. I'll reserve my thoughts on this chapter for there, as well, as I feel I've been long-winded enough with this note. Thank you for reading thus far; I hope, whether you enjoyed the first chapter or disliked it intensely, you'll leave a review.

Thanks again. See you soon.


	2. Before Bardiel

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**Before Bardiel**

Chapter Two

I've never had much money. The Commander gives me a small stipend every Monday, enough to secure a week's meals from the grocer's. Light and water are at Nerv's expense. Everything else is luxury, and I have no need for them. I save what I don't use, week to week.

At that moment, standing on the sidewalk, my savings amounted to three hundred yen. Not enough, I realized, to do much other than drop a coin into the public phone and hold the receiver to my ear.

I dislike telephones. Even more than face-to-face, people expect others to respond when they're done speaking to them.

"Hello, Katsuragi here."

If I'd gone to Major Katsuragi's apartment, she would know who I am and not have to ask.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

"Major," I said.

"Rei? My, this is unexpected."

Yes. It is.

"Something the matter?"

"No."

"I see. So why are you calling me at home then?"

"I'm not calling you."

"Well, Rei, I think you are."

It would be too cumbersome to explain.

"Or perhaps you didn't mean to call me?"

Then again…

"Asuka, perhaps?"

"No," I said. "I do not wish to speak to her."

"Oh, I see now," said the major. "Shinji-kun, then?"

"Is he present?"

The major's voice went faint and distant. "Asuka! There's a girl on the phone calling for Shin-chan! Maybe you know her?"

"Eh?" Pilot Sōryū grew louder and more shrill as she approached the receiver. "You must be joking! That idiot wouldn't know the first thing about girls. He must've said he was a great and courageous Eva pilot and seduced whoever-it-is."

"I thought you said he knew nothing about girls," said the major.

"Oh, give me that!" The line cracked with static. "Hello? Look, I don't know who you are, but you don't want anything to do with Shinji, you understand? He's a first-class wimp, you know! How anyone so passive and doll-like can even pilot an Eva is beyond me! Who are you to find that attractive, anyway?"

"I would like to speak to Major Katsuragi again, please."

"EH? Misato, what the hell is this? It's just First on the line. What kind of joke are you trying—"

The line went quiet.

I think, in retrospect, this was the first time I'd ever heard Pilot Sōryū be perfectly silent.

"So," she said at last, her voice lower, more ragged. "Miss Perfect is after Shinji, is she? Interesting. A doll like you would fancy a doll like him, wouldn't you. Fine. You want him? You think _you_ can make the first move? He sure won't."

From the banging that followed, I think Pilot Sōryū threw the receiver against the wall for good measure.

"Ah, Rei?" said the major. "I guess I didn't think Asuka would have such a strong reaction. Sorry about that."

"Are you?"

She hesitated. "You were looking for Shinji-kun, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, I have to be sorry for that, too; he's not back yet. Strange, actually. When I left work he was with Kaji. It's unusual for him to take so long."

"I'm certain Inspector Kaji isn't making unwanted advances on Ikari-kun."

"He'd better not!" The major grumbled. "I may have to call them up and drag them back to Nerv."

"To Nerv?"

"Yes. Ritsuko just called; apparently the scientists want to do another synch test today. Can you believe it? It'll practically be dinner time by then!"

"I see."

"The test's in an hour; if you like, we can swing by and pick you up. Ritsuko told me you've been back and forth a lot lately. You must be tired."

"That is acceptable."

"All right. See you in a bit?"

I hung up. I didn't call to speak with Major Katsuragi, though I find her generally acceptable. Competent, for the most part. Reckless sometimes. As long as the Commander has faith in her, I do, too. I do not usually have need to socialize her.

No. I called for Ikari-kun. I called for a very specific reason, a reason apparent as I pushed open the door to my apartment, the door with no lock.

My apartment is clean.

Why is the floor clean?

Some people have an odd fascination with cleanliness. In some contexts, I understand it. The Commander's office is pristine. Even a single speck of dust he brushes from his desk. This is efficient. The Commander works there. He cannot afford distractions. He has a task, a purpose, and that purpose demands no distractions. He is … single-minded.

But I do not work here. I eat, and I sleep. I dress and report to Nerv. I attend school. I do what is required of me. Everything else is distraction. I don't need a clean floor. Most of that space is wasted anyway. If it were important, I'd have cleaned it myself.

No, I'm sure of it now. This trivial matter was _not_ important to my purpose.

But it could be important to me.

This morning, I walked with the Commander, into Central Dogma. He asked me if I were well, and I said I was. I told him I would see Doctor Akagi tomorrow and go to school the next day.

He said this was good.

And that was all.

The Commander has never cleaned my floor. I don't expect him to, nor do I ask that he hire a maid or a housekeeper. Such extravagance is wasteful, and I don't think I'd want another person here to pick up after me.

If I were ordered to, I could renovate this apartment. I wouldn't know what suits it, but I've seen other rooms. They're … bright. They're white. They have _things_. They have pillows that aren't for sleeping. They have mirrors that aren't for grooming. They have decorative things, things that serve no purpose except to exist, to be perceived.

Am I not the same? I pilot Eva; it is my connection to people, but is it my purpose?

I think the Commander wants more of me than that. I _fear_ the Commander wants more of me than that.

But why is the floor clean?

I know, mechanically, why this is so. Ikari-kun and Suzuhara-kun visited a short while ago. They left printouts from class, and Ikari-kun collected all the crumpled paper and bandages in a rubbish bag. He apologized—why, I don't know—and assured me he left everything else untouched. Everything that was mine.

In this, I think, Ikari-kun misunderstands. Nerv owns this apartment. It isn't mine. My uniform, my bag—Nerv bought them, too. Nerv bought my textbooks, and what I borrow from the library is just that: borrowed. The Commander's glasses aren't mine, either. I keep them, but only because they are no longer of use to him.

That's why Ikari-kun was wrong. I don't own anything.

Not this apartment.

Not my textbooks.

Not even this body.

I looked at the reflection in the washroom mirror. Pale blue hair. Bright red eyes.

Did you think I'd look different enough, Commander? Did you think no one would notice I resemble her? When we ate lunch today and you gazed across the table, did you see me or her?

Do you see me for her, too, Ikari-kun? Though you don't know I'm her?

"I took it upon myself to clean up a little," he said, "but I didn't touch anything except trash."

Warmth.

My eyes snapped open. My cheeks were red.

I've felt this before. Not for the Commander, either.

And though I don't understand it, I think I'm thankful, too.

Gratitude. Words of thanks. Words I've never said before.

I'd never even said them to _him_.

Is that ungrateful?

He scarred his hands greatly to see I was well. He let his glasses warp and melt in boiling LCL. He pried open the entry plug with only the strength of his arms and hands.

They both did.

No, there's a difference. He knows what I am. He made me. He's given me a purpose. He knows who I am and what I represent.

His son doesn't.

Why did you pry open my entry plug, Ikari-kun? Why is it too sad when I say goodbye? Why shouldn't I say I have nothing else? I didn't. I don't. I hardly knew you then; I don't know you now.

Why is the floor clean?

Was it because, even then, you felt some connection to me? You knew, or you felt, something?

I put the notebook down. The Commander was right. This could be very distracting.

And yet, I don't wish to stop.

The floor is clean.

I think I prefer it this way.

Knock-knock. "Rei?" said the major. "Are you in there?"

The major has come for me. The major, Pilot Sōryū…

And Ikari-kun?

I answered the door.

"What a surprise," said Pilot Sōryū. "I expected your place wouldn't be any fun, but this is a dump!"

The major winced, laughing lightly. "Sorry about that," she said. "Ready to go?"

The major, Pilot Sōryū…

But no Ikari-kun.

"Shinji-kun?" said the major. "Oh no, Kaji's going to walk him back to Nerv. We'll meet him there."

I looked to Pilot Sōryū, and I wished, for a moment, I still had a choice to walk there myself. I realize that sounds mean-spirited, so let me be clear: I bear Pilot Sōryū no malice. Malice requires that I wish her harm or injury. I do not. I've never been ordered to inflict harm upon her, for one.

I also think that, if injured, she would strive to be even more unpleasant than she already is. It's not that I resent her presence alone, but what she says I cannot trust. It's difficult enough watching people, being uncertain whether their smiles are genuine. With Pilot Sōryū, even simple words take on a thousand meanings—or most often, the meaning they carry is the opposite of what they should mean, what, to any other person, they would mean.

I don't put much stock in what Pilot Sōryū says at all.

"He's amazing!" she'd said once. "Wonderful, too awesome! The invincible Shinji-sama! This just means we get to take it easy now, right?"

If I'd had to guess, I'd have said she sounded pleased that Ikari-kun bested both of us with his synch scores.

_Sounded_ pleased. Knowing Pilot Sōryū, I'm certain she wasn't.

"So tell me." As we rode to Nerv in the major's car, Pilot Sōryū laid her chin on the headrest, twisting her body backward in the front seat. "Tell me: why would you call Shinji?"

I looked out the window.

"Miss Perfect doesn't do anything unless she's 'ordered' to, isn't that so?"

A utility pole passed by. I like utility poles. I like them because they're silent.

"So the commander ordered you to get in his pants?"

The major paled. "Asuka."

"What, Misato? Do you think Shinji could get a girl all by himself?" She looked to me again. "You should be careful. I bet if you kiss him, he'll just stand still like a mannequin, watching you with that empty stare of his."

"I think you should sit straight in your seat," said the major.

"Can't you see First and I are talking?"

"You're the one doing the talking."

Pilot Sōryū narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I suppose that's so, isn't it. I'm not the one who's a lifeless doll."

"Turn around, Asuka."

"I'm not done—"

The tires squealed. The car banked around a sharp turn at a hundred kilometers per hour.

I dare say both right wheels lifted off the ground.

"Have you forgotten who's driving this car?" said the major.

Pilot Sōryū sighed, facing forward. "You're ruthless, Misato. You'd threaten all our lives, and for what? To win a silly little argument?"

"Says the girl who started the argument."

I couldn't see Pilot Sōryū's reaction to this, but Major Katsuragi smiled slightly as we pulled up to the next signal. I can only imagine, then, that Sōryū didn't take it well.

"So why did you call us, First?" she asked. "Why were you looking for Shinji?"

"I wasn't."

A car behind us honked, startling the major. She pushed the accelerator, and we took off again, but at a much safer pace.

"You weren't?" said Sōryū.

"Doctor Akagi had told me she might want to see us for more tests tonight," I said. "I called to see if Major Katsuragi knew of those plans."

"You've been seeing the doctors and all of them a lot lately, haven't you."

I blinked. "Yes…"

"Synch scores and harmonics aren't like school, you know," said Sōryū. "You can't just do it over and over and expect to get better at it. You have to have talent."

"The tests aren't for my synch scores."

"Oh? What then?"

I looked out the window.

"Hey, First? I'm talking to you."

The metal guardrail glittered in the sun.

"You're terrible to talk to, you know that?"

Major Katsuragi snickered. "Conversations are two-way, Asuka."

"It's not my fault I'm talking to a silent doll."

You keep saying I'm a doll.

"Rei isn't silent," said the major, "but I'll let Rei speak for herself."

Why am I a doll to you?

"You mean _not_ speak for herself," said Sōryū.

"The surest way to know a fool is to hear what he says when he opens his mouth," said the major. "To be silent is to be wise."

"I don't see anything wise about it: being mute like a doll and acting like the perfect teacher's pet. Or should I say _commander's_ pet?" She leaned over the center console, watching me. "Well, First? That _is_ why you pilot Eva, isn't it? Because the great Commander Ikari tells you to, and you're all too happy to obey?"

"No."

"Why then?" said Sōryū.

"It is my bond."

"To who? Him?"

"To everyone."

" 'To everyone,' she says!" Sōryū laughed. "At least Shinji I understand. He wants his father to praise him or some other kind of idiotic nonsense. Why would you want a bond with everyone? People are dumb."

"Asuka," said the major.

"Don't you people ever think about yourselves? Argh, that's it, isn't it? That's what I hate about the both of you. You won't take pride in what you do, what _we_ do. You let others pull your strings, but how can you be any good if you put in none of the effort yourself? What good are any of you if you don't care about proving you can stand on your own?"

"Not everyone's afraid they'll fall down if their strings are cut," said the major.

Sōryū growled. "Honestly, none of you Japanese make any sense."

I think I could say the same of you. The Commander may still trust in you, the major may tolerate you, but that doesn't erase my doubt. Sōryū is dangerous. I cannot help but think something ill will happen for the way she pilots, the reasons she pilots. Her attitude is reckless, deluded.

Selfish. Why should one take pride in doing as one's told?

Ikari-kun wants his father's praise, Sōryū wants to praise herself, but to earn praise, mustn't one be worthy of that praise?

Perhaps that is why I can't do as Sōryū does.

We soon arrived at Nerv without further incident. Pilot Sōryū sprang from the car as soon as it halted, slamming the door on her way out.

"Well, if we must do more tests, at least I can get out of this itchy uniform and into my plug suit." She peered into the window. "You two coming or what?"

"Why don't you go on ahead?" said the major. "Rei and I have some things to discuss."

Sōryū frowned. "You're a terrible liar, Misato."

The major laughed. "You think so?"

"All right; have it your way." Despite her suspicions, Sōryū skipped off. She swiped her card key at the turnstile and disappeared down the escalator to Central Dogma.

"I have nothing more to discuss with you, major," I said.

"Maybe you don't, but I do." She watched me from the corner of her eye, peeking over the center console of the car. "You lied to Asuka just now."

"I did?"

"You said you weren't calling for Shinji-kun, but you were."

"I didn't believe Pilot Sōryū needed to know that."

"True, maybe it's better she doesn't." The major's eyes narrowed. "But I can't remember another time when I knew for sure that you'd lied."

"If you order me to, I will desist."

"You can do as you please between Asuka and Shinji-kun. I don't mind that."

I said nothing.

"It's secrets I mind," said the major.

"Secrets?"

"The Fourth has been found," she said. "Did you know that?"

I said nothing.

"Or maybe I should say _chosen_."

"The Marduk Institute did not discover him?"

"The Marduk Institute doesn't exist, Rei. It never did. Nerv's pulling all the strings."

"You're certain?"

"I may not trust my source in other matters, but in this, yes, I'm certain. Nerv is holding many secrets, I'm sure." The major looked up, to the rear-view mirror, meeting my eyes. "But you knew that already, didn't you?"

"Major?"

"You're a secret yourself. Where did you come from, Rei? Who are your parents? Why does the Commander have such a keen interest in you?"

I said nothing.

"Well then," said the major, "that's what I expected to hear. I don't know what Commander Ikari has to do with you. I don't expect you to _say_ anything. There are people, like Asuka, who say the only thing you care about is the commander, but that's not true, is it?"

"What are you suggesting, major?"

"I'm not suggesting, merely stating. Nerv can't be two things at once. Either we're here to fight and kill the Angels before they kill us, or we're just pawns to in a greater chess game, and you know who the king is. Sooner or later, Rei, you're going to have to decide: do you want to be white or black?"

She opened the driver side door. She encircled the car and leaned over my window, watching me.

"Tell him about this conversation if you like," she said. "But only if you _choose_ to."

That assumes quite a bit, Major Katsuragi. That assumes he won't order me to, that his people aren't watching us at this very moment and know what we say, whether I tell him or not.

That assumes I have a choice at all. I don't. I have only judgment.

I looked back, watching the major go before me.

Surely it was Inspector Kaji who revealed this secret to the major. His actions are suspicious; the Commander already had reason to investigate him. The Commander will hear of this incident, and Inspector Kaji will be punished.

And the major?

The major knew I'd lied to Sōryū. She knew, yet she did not say. I can't see how it served her to be silent. If she disapproved, she could've alerted Sōryū and made the rest of the car ride … unpleasant.

But she didn't. I've been told Major Katsuragi can behave like more of a bona fide child than I. She can be reckless and risks much to kill the Angels.

She watches over us as we enter battle. When we come under fire and our lives are in danger, Major Katsuragi doesn't sacrifice lives to achieve her ends. She orders the entry plug ejected, to save the pilot, even if it costs an Eva. The pilot is precious to her. In her eyes, a pilot cannot be replaced.

For two of the three of us, she's right.

The Commander doesn't need to know who Inspector Kaji revealed this secret to.

And already, I've told another lie. This time, to myself.

We waited for half an hour, Sōryū and I, for Ikari-kun to arrive. Doctor Akagi suggested we sit in the test plugs to reduce any further delays. I think Sōryū preferred it that way, and I had no excuse to object. The only alternative was to wait in the changing room, and though I wished to speak with Ikari-kun beforehand, the changing room lacked something the test plugs did not.

A mute function.

But after the tests, rather than let him change with us, Doctor Akagi and Major Katsuragi quickly took Ikari-kun away.

"As I thought," said Sōryū, stuffing her plug suit in her locker. "Everybody had to know stupid Shniji's 'amazing' test scores would fall off. It was just a matter of time. I can't believe anyone's surprised."

I left the locker room quickly. For Doctor Akagi to remove Ikari-kun so hastily—could it be he was ill?

"Ill? Oh no, I don't think he's ill."

I found Doctor Akagi lighting a cigarette in the hallway outside the medical facilities. Through the doorway, the doctor's assistants examined Ikari-kun. They shined a flashlight in his eyes and tapped his kneecap, checking for reflexes.

"We just have to be thorough," said the doctor. "Shinji-kun's scores have dropped slightly, and I'd like to rule out any lingering physical ailment before we address the likely cause."

"The likely cause?"

The doctor exhaled, sending a puff of smoke down the corridor. "The major and I suspect Shinji-kun's not fully recovered from the incident with the Twelfth Angel. We'll bring in a psychiatrist to be sure."

"I wasn't aware Nerv had a psychiatrist on staff."

"Yes, well, he doesn't get quite as much work as I would expect. People can be stubborn that way. I've lobbied Commander Ikari to grant me power of medical suspension, but so far he has steadfastly shredded those requests."

I leaned to the side, peering past Doctor Akagi, into the medical area. "May I see Ikari-kun?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait," said the doctor, moving a step to block me. "This check-up could take quite a while and is best undisturbed."

"I see."

"You've become interested in Shinji-kun's wellbeing, I take it?"

I blinked.

"It's not a bad thing, you know," said the doctor, smiling. "People more easily fight for others than they do for ideals or for duty. I think the three of you would do well to embrace that and look out for one another."

People _should_ bond with each other? That's not what the Commander said. "These attachments—they cannot interfere with your piloting duties. If they do, I will put a stop to them myself." Those were his words.

"Can they not become a distraction?" I asked the doctor. "In combat, do they not make us vulnerable?"

"Admittedly they can, but it's the difference between gaining courage to save another's life and feeling fear that you might fail." The doctor sighed. "We each have that capability within us, don't we? Shinji-kun is a good example." She held the cigarette between her fingers, tapping the ashes off. "He attaches to people too easily. He won't take this news well."

"So the Fourth has been found?"

The doctor raised her eyebrows. "News travels fast, doesn't it? Yes indeed. I believe you know him, don't you? Suzuhara Tōji-kun?"

"He is our classmate."

"And a friend to Shinji-kun. Tell me, Rei: do you think Shinji-kun will want to see Suzuhara-kun join your ranks?"

I said nothing.

"Well, as operations director, Major Katsuragi will tell him when she sees fit, and I won't interfere." The doctor frowned. "Is there something else I can do for you, Rei?"

"I require a refill of my prescription."

"Which one?"

"The pills, doctor."

"You should be set for another two weeks with the last bottle I gave you."

"I wish not to bother you in the future."

The doctor eyed me strangely. Did she suspect that that, too, was a lie?

"All right," said Doctor Akagi. "Just a moment." She ducked into the medical area, and through the gap in the door, I watched Ikari-kun proceed with more of his preliminary checkup. The nurses and assistants had sat him with his back to me; he wouldn't know I was present, and I thought, at the time, that was well enough. I did not want to have the conversation I desired here, with so many others to overhear.

But even since this afternoon, when Ikari-kun showed me his kindness, I felt that much had happened. I'd lied, several times now, to protect things I don't understand—and not both of them the same thing, either. On one side, the major was looking for secrets, and on the other, Doctor Akagi entrusted me with one.

"Something the matter?" Doctor Akagi slid through the doorway, my bottle of pills in hand. "You seem troubled."

"Is it right?" I asked her. "To keep the truth about the Fourth from Ikari-kun this way?"

"As I said, it's not my decision, but…" She leaned on the wall of the corridor, thoughtful. "I suppose we all have uncomfortable truths we have to face at some point. It's just a matter of time and place."

I nodded. "Is that why you showed me footage of the Unit-01 contact experiment?"

"Showed you—" Doctor Akagi's eyes widened. She shut the door to medical and glanced down the hallway in both directions. "Rei, I never showed you any such thing."

"But you did, doctor. You left it on your computer for me to see. You—"

She darted forward, clasping her hand over my mouth. "I didn't," she said, whispering. "I did no such thing. You understand?" She held the bottle of pills between us. "I did no such thing, and you will not speak of it. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." She placed the bottle in my hand. "Now run along. Shinji-kun will be a while. Perhaps you can see him tomorrow?"

"We have tests to run tomorrow."

"Ah." The doctor slipped out another cigarette and lit it. "So we do."

I left Doctor Akagi there, smoking in the corridor, as I made my way back home. She said we all face uncomfortable truths, and I can't help but think she was right. For me, the uncomfortable truth is that I have Ikari-kun's body, that I'm something that shouldn't be. But there's a truth worse than that.

Every day, I am alone. Some days more than others, but I'm always alone. I was alone when I walked to Nerv the next day. I was alone when Doctor Akagi and her assistants examined me. The scientists talk and smile sometimes, but not often. I think their smiles only hides the truth:

They don't think of me as a person. They consider me a _thing_. A doll, like Sōryū says. Only dolls wear the same clothes all the time.

"Ayanami?"

I met him by the turnstiles. I didn't expect to see him there.

"I thought you might be here," said Ikari-kun. "I didn't see you at school, but you're wearing your uniform."

"I have nothing else."

"Nothing else what?"

"To wear."

"You're kidding!"

"I'm not."

He shook his head. "Maybe I can ask Misato-san to take you out shopping, buy you some different clothes." He made a face. "Then again, I'd be afraid to see what she'd buy for you."

"My clothing isn't important," I said.

"Of course it's not 'important,' but you should have something that's yours," he said. "You need to take better care of yourself, Ayanami."

No, Ikari-kun, you still misunderstand. You think I'm important when I'm not. I do not need these luxuries. I do not need things to call my own. I only _need_ what I must have to survive.

But that's the difference between Ikari-kun and the scientists at Nerv. Ikari-kun sees me as a person.

"Thank you," I said.

"Thanks? For what?"

"I didn't thank you properly when you came to my apartment yesterday. You were kind, and I should thank you again."

He smiled. "It was nothing," he said. "It's what anyone would do."

No, Ikari-kun. I don't think it is.

I bowed my head to him and went on my way.

"Ah, Ayanami, wait." He opened his school bag and offered a book to me. "Here, I owe you this."

It was a copy of _A Tale of Two Cities_, but where the library tag should've been, the spine was only lightly scratched and scuffed.

"I noticed you borrowed the copy you lent to me," he said. "Do you borrow all your books?"

"Nerv gave me my textbooks. Everything else I borrow, yes."

"Right, see? I thought so. It's exactly what I was talking about." He closed my fingers around the cover and smiled. "You need to have something that's yours."

There's that heat again. It flooded my cheeks. It burned to the touch.

"It's used," he said. "I hope that's okay. It's all I could find on short notice."

"It's more than sufficient," I said. "I shouldn't accept this."

"It's all right, really!" he said. "I want you to have it."

I held the book against my chest with both arms. "Then I will accept."

"Great! See you tomorrow?"

"Yes. I think I'll be at school tomorrow."

"That's good."

I thought the conversation would be over then, and I would've been glad for it if it had, but instead, I chose to linger while Ikari-kun swiped his card at the turnstile.

"Oh!" he said. "Speaking of school, I was talking to Kensuke today. He was saying something about Unit-04 in Nevada exploding. Had you heard anything about that?"

I nodded.

"He also said that Unit-03 was being flown to Matsushiro so we could test it. Kensuke thought Nerv might need another pilot."

I nodded again.

"Have you heard who it is?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It's just…" He looked down. "I'd hate for anyone to have to do what we do," he said. "Asuka might not mind it, but you and I both know—to pilot Eva is to suffer. When the Eva is hurt, we hurt. When the Eva bleeds, it feels like we bleed. Nobody should have to go endure that. I still don't know why _I_ have to endure it."

The gate doors began to clamp shut.

"Ah, sorry," he said, stepping through the opening. "Maybe we can talk later?"

"I don't know."

"Eh?"

"I don't know who the pilot is."

"Oh." His gaze was distant. "Well, see you…"

The gate shut. Ikari-kun was gone. I can only hope he might forgive me for lying to him—or that he might never learn I knew at all. But that would be unfair. I realize now I've always been keeping secrets—about myself, about the Commander. My name is Evrémonde as much as it is Ayanami.

I think Ayanami, like Darnay, is a made-up name, too.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been working on this story on the side, and I'm reasonably pleased with the results for chapter two. The first outline for this chapter was quite a bit shorter than the result, but I think the changes were for the better. Rei's journey toward becoming her own person is a slow one, but it's proving quite a lot of fun to write.

Anyway, for more detailed notes about this chapter and others, check out my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com


	3. After Bardiel

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**After Bardiel**

_Chapter Three_

I think I wish to dream. I've heard about dreams, read about dreams. Pilot Sōryū asked me if I dream.

I don't think I do. A dream is a "succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep," but to be a true dream, there's something else it must be:

Not real. If our dreams foretold the future, they would be visions. If our dreams relived the past, they would be memories. If our dreams connect us to each other in a way that is tangible and lasting, can you call them dreams at all—or just another interaction between people, another level of reality?

Eva Unit-00 is still damaged, crippled from the battle that took place four days ago. I'm in the locker room right now, waiting in my plugsuit. I was meant to pilot Unit-01, but it won't accept me, and I know why. Unit-00 was not meant to fight today, yet it is the only chance—my only chance—to make a difference here. The floor shakes. The sirens flash and blare. Outside, Pilot Sōryū wishes to destroy the Angel herself. I don't know how the battle goes, but I expect, by the rattling, it doesn't go well.

It is no matter. I'm prepared to risk my life, to sleep and dream. I want to dream.

I think I've wanted to dream ever since the battle four days ago.

Four days ago, I sat in the dark, in cold LCL. The entry plug was black, without power. Eva Unit-00 had fallen on its side, so too did I lie sprawled and bruised in the control chair. I gripped the controls with my left arm to hold myself steady, but it wasn't enough. Anyone would've needed two good hands to right themselves in that position. Most people have two good hands, but my right arm was numb.

My right arm was gone.

The Commander cut my arm away with explosive bolts.

No, not my arm. The Eva's arm. But when I sit in the Eva, we are the same. I feel what it feels. I see what it sees. When he blasted the Eva's arm away, the neural connections transmitted the pain to me. There wasn't time to sever them. It was to save my life, to spare me from the Angel's corruption.

_You're wrong…_

Even in the black, the dark, the silence, there was something else in the entry plug. It's a voice not foreign to me. It's a voice that cannot surprise me.

_You think he loves you, but he doesn't._

It's my voice. It's the _me_ inside the Eva, the thing that talks to me like I'm part of It, too. Sometimes, It talks to me in whispers, other times images.

And sometimes, all I see are Its red eyes—my eyes—staring back at me from the void.

That day It came to me not as eyes in the dark—not just eyes, at least. It likes to think It's human; It likes to think Itself the larger part of a whole, that _I'm_ the detached fragment, lost and pitiful.

It imagines Itself a child of four, maybe five years. It wears a red blouse with a pink shirt underneath, capped by a white collar, and all It dreams about, day in and day out, is wandering gray halls underneath a place called Hakone. It lurks in the shadows; It spies on Doctor Akagi, but this isn't the Doctor Akagi I know. Her hair is dark; her mole is gone. She speaks lightly and kindly, but It doesn't like her. It doesn't trust her. It insults her, belittles her. It calls her _bā-san_—a grandmother, an old woman, a hag. It laughs and giggles at the doctor's reaction.

It laughs until the doctor crushes Its windpipe in her hands.

_That's why he doesn't love you._

It crawled from the void to sit on my arm—my arm that was gone—and It laughed. It grinned. It grinned a sickly grin; Its eyes warped and sparkled.

_I thought he told me how he hated her because he loved me. I thought he kept me close because he loved me, but he didn't._

It leaned over me, eyes wide with fire.

_You know who I am, don't you? _

You are the first.

_And you are the second. Never forget that we were made to serve him. Don't think he won't grow tired of you or fear that you won't advance his purpose. He only wants one thing. He used _her_ for it. Why do you think he told me what he called her? _

You're wrong. The Commander protected me. He saved me in that test. He saved me from _you_.

_He saved a compliant puppet. He saved you for what you look like, for the mold we were made to resemble. Go to him now, and he'll prove it to you. See if he cares for the pain he caused you._

That was necessary. I would've died.

_Yes. He saved your life, but does he _value_ it? Do _you_ value your life, or do you only value him? _

I have only my purpose—

'_Purpose.' _ It laughed. _You don't understand. Go to him. Show him how much it hurts._ It squeezed my shoulder.

And a jolt of pain surged through my arm.

_It _does_ hurt, doesn't it? _

I cringed. I gritted my teeth. Why did it hurt then? It had been numb just a minute before. Why did I feel needles sinking into my skin?

_Show both of them how it feels. I guarantee you—they won't care. To them, you're a shade. You're a reflection of something that was human. But you're not human at all. It's just like the doctor said, remember? You're nothing. It doesn't matter if you die; you can always be replaced._

It squeezed my arm with both hands, crushing, stinging, as It leaned to whisper in my ear.

_Just like me._

BANG! The plug rattled; my arm shook. The _me_ within the Eva had left, silent but waiting. Though It spoke no longer, I felt Its weight upon me, the crushing, stabbing sensation upon my dead arm.

BANG! The hatch bulged against its hinges, and I covered an ear with my good hand. Even with LCL to cushion me there, the vibration was unbearable. The tapping, banging, screeching—they echoed in my head.

BANG! The bolts gave. The hatch caved and floated out as LCL escaped the entry plug, pouring onto the earth.

"Hello in there!" said a voice. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

Whether I was or wasn't seemed immaterial. As I coughed out the last drops of LCL from my lungs, a crew of four, clad in rubber suits, climbed into the plug. They shined a flashlight in my eyes, dabbed at a scrape on my cheek. But when one of them touched my arm…

"Ahh!"

"Hey, watch that!" said a medic. "We might have a break here!"

I clenched the controls, dragging myself to my feet.

"Whoa now, you really want to be moving?"

Yes. If I didn't want to be moving, I wouldn't have moved.

I took a step from the control chair.

And stumbled.

"Easy, easy!" said one of the rescuers. "You there, help take some of the weight!"

They carried me by my arms and legs to the hatch. The plug faced downward now, opening to the earth, so they lowered me feet-first through the gap and caught me on a stretcher. With a backdrop of the setting sun, I couldn't see the crew's faces.

"No, no, miss, you should lie down; we need to examine you!"

Strobe lights from an ambulance flickered in the dusk, but what I noticed wasn't the flashing blue.

It was the red. Red was everywhere. It splashed on the skyscrapers in streaks. It oozed downhill, curdling, caking like dried sludge.

We had won, I saw. If we hadn't, if the Angel had lived, we would've died by then. No, the conclusion was clear: Unit-02 had fallen first, then I had. Only Ikari-kun was left.

Ikari-kun killed the Angel.

Ikari-kun maimed his friend, Suzuhara.

Ikari-kun strewed Unit-03's insides over the road from Mastushiro to Tōkyō-3.

Some of these things I guessed; others I saw for myself. Unit-01 had been closer to the city, after all. Ikari-kun was the last line of defense. The paramedics drove past the incident site—the carcass, I should say, of Unit-03.

Perhaps even that word overstated how much was left. A plate of armor had flown off, leveling an office building. The eyes lay like boulders on the side of the road, blocking a lane of traffic. The ambulance passed slowly over the highway, for the tires slipped and spun on bloody pavement.

And then there was the entry plug.

The ends were intact, not undamaged but they maintained their integrity. It was the midsection of the plug that was the problem.

There was no midsection left at all.

I would like to have said I had difficulty believing Ikari-kun could do such a thing, that he would fight with such ferocity, that he would flay the flesh from his opponent's bones, but I knew that to be untrue. I've read the reports, seen the footage. If Ikari-kun had lost control of Unit-01 somehow, it would be all too easy to unleash the beast within.

And even if he hadn't, Ikari-kun had that beast within him, too. I think, in fact, Doctor Akagi had said it best. I overheard her once in the Nerv cafeteria as she shared her theory of Ikari-kun's mind with Major Katsuragi.

"When you're a boy like Shinji-kun—timid, polite, even meek at times—it's because you think you can appease people," she'd said. "You think you can make them like you. You think they won't hurt you if you do whatever they want. But no one can be that way all the time. Eventually, it's human nature that we _will_ hurt others and be hurt by them, too. And for someone like Shinji-kun, who wants so much to avoid being hurt, make no mistake: to the person that hurt him, he'll feel frustration. He'll feel pain of his own making because he blames himself. But no one can blame themselves for long, either, particularly when that blame is misdirected. Blame finds its source. Frustration finds its source. For Shinji-kun, who's used to doing everything he can to make himself liked, there will come a moment, a critical moment, when he decides that all his efforts are pointless with that person, that all his hopes and dreams are in vain. He'll lash out at them. He'll inflict pain many times that which he received. It doesn't matter if it's a person or an Angel. The net effect is the same:

"The relationship dies," she finished, "or the focus of his frustrations dies instead."

As I recall, the major snorted when Doctor Akagi concluded her monologue. "What grand insight into a crucial aspect of my life, Sensei! What other great psychological wisdom do you have for me?"

The doctor had smiled. "Perhaps we can discuss the Elektra complex and your relationship with—"

"Don't you say another word."

I think I've strayed from the topic. At least, Doctor Akagi and Major Katsuragi's lunchtime conversations are not the topic, but I could agree with the doctor's interpretation: Ikari-kun's approach to piloting was peculiar and full of contradiction. He said to pilot Eva was to suffer, that it was a suffering he hoped never to inflict on a friend. I fully believed him capable of savagery. I'd seen it before, and there was evidence of it then, as twilight engulfed the skies of Tōkyō-3, dimming the stark red color of Unit-03's blood.

But if Ikari-kun had harmed Suzuhara-kun, I could only wonder what his reaction would be, now that the battle was over.

It may be he had no choice.

"They did tell me he lived," said the paramedic, who strung a bag of IV fluids over my stretcher. "The pilot, I mean. I don't know how bad off he was, but they told me he lived. I guess that's good, right?"

Yes. I'm told it's good to be alive. To live is reversible. To die is permanent. It's better to live because, if it's a mistake, it can be undone later. When people die, they're simply dead.

Is that why I hesitated?

I had Unit-03 in my gun sight. The shot was good. The computer calculated the firing solution and told me so—the shot was good. I had the element of surprise. I had every tactical advantage.

The Commander said it: Unit-03 had to be forsaken to the enemy. It _was_ the enemy, and it should be fired upon. It should be defeated. It should be destroyed without hesitation or guilt.

If I hadn't hesitated, Ikari-kun wouldn't have needed to fight his friend alone.

If I hadn't hesitated, my arm might not have hurt.

But it did.

The roads were bright with the glow of halogen lamps, but the ambulance drove into shadows, onto the automated cargo mover that led into the Geofront. There, the medics would take me to the Nerv hospital ward. Perhaps then they could find some reason for the pain.

The paramedic cut a length of surgical cord. "I'm going to just wrap this around your upper arm real quick to—"

He touched me.

I recoiled.

"Sensitive?" he said, frowning.

I nodded.

"Maybe the right arm would be better, then?"

I nodded again. That arm would be fine. I wouldn't mind the paramedic piercing my flesh to drive a needle into a vein, as long as there was no blood.

As long as I didn't have to see it.

"Are you sure I can't give you something for the pain?"

No, I'd rather be at Nerv with my full medical history on file. The possibility for drug interactions and side effects is too great to—

Screeching. The cabin rattled. The stretcher shook. My body lurched as the ambulance tilted and stopped.

And the stretcher's steel frame banged into my left shoulder.

"Dear gods," said the medic, stabbing a bottle of liquid with a syringe. "Look, this'll take some of the edge off." He injected an analgesic into the IV. My arm tingled dully, a palpable stinging, but easier to bear.

"Hey." The paramedic knocked on the window, alerting the driver. "What's going on? Why'd we stop?"

"Beats the hell out of me," said his colleague. "All I know is I got an alert—'emergency stop.' That's all it said."

"Dandy. If that mover doesn't get up and running again, I think this girl might jump out of her own skin. She's in agony here."

"I haven't heard a peep from her," said the driver.

"She hasn't made one."

"Well, what's the issue? Is the arm broken? Elbow sprained?"

"I can't tell. Can't touch it without knocking the wind out of her."

"All right, let me get some answers here." The driver unhooked a dashboard radio microphone and triggered the transmitter. "Control, this is Emergency Rescue One-Zero-Eight. Requesting ETA on reactivation of cargo mover number four, over."

There were static and silence for a few seconds, then…

"One-Zero-Eight, this is Control," said Lieutenant Aoba. "ETA on number four reactivation is unavailable. Standby."

" 'Standby? ' I don't think you understand, Control: I've got a wounded pilot here!"

"And we've got a rogue pilot about to wreck Nerv Headquarters because his father 'used his own hands' to crush his friend's body in the plug," said Aoba. "The cargo movers will be reactivated when—if—the current situation resolves. Standby. Control out."

I understood, at that moment, what had happened. It wasn't Ikari-kun who ripped apart Unit-03. It wasn't the Eva itself, at least not alone. The Commander was in charge. The Commander would've made the order if he thought it necessary.

The Commander activated the dummy plug.

The Commander used my body.

The "situation," as it turned out, was short-lived. Lieutenant Aoba informed us that the Commander subdued his son with an overpressure of the entry plug LCL. The cargo mover lurched forward, and we descended, into the Geofront. The medics wheeled my stretcher into the hospital ward, where I was examined, tested. They pricked me with needles; they dabbed alcohol and antiseptic into my scrapes. They offered me pills and injections for the pain. I did not refuse. Doctors have always told me what to do. I saw no reason to refuse them now.

I'm used to people doing things with my body. I think it's good that I can be useful—as a pilot, as a model. They needed models for the dummy plugs. They needed the thought patterns of a pilot, and they needed a body that could be made and remade. At first, I didn't understand how I could be of use in that regard.

Until Doctor Akagi showed me the tape.

Until the me inside the Eva whispered in my ear.

I have never minded the tests. They are but another purpose. They could be uncomfortable, but I had no need for comfort. If not for the tests and simulations, I would go to school and look out the window. I would read textbooks from the library. Perhaps I would understand the world a bit more, but I would have nothing to use that knowledge for.

I'd thought, by cooperating with the tests, I could be helpful.

"Miss, this is an x-ray; what are you doing?" asked a nurse.

"You told me to remove my clothes," I said.

"And to put on the hospital gown I gave you."

"You did not say that."

The nurse sighed. For some reason, I felt she didn't believe me, but she really didn't say I was to wear the hospital gown. If there were surveillance tape, she would see I was correct.

The nurse did not waste time, at least. She only made me wear a protective lead smock to block any radiation from penetrating my chest or abdomen.

The nurse touched my hand.

I flinched.

"Sorry," she said. "Can you fit this holder here between your arm and torso?"

I pulled my own hand over the film holder and lowered the arm gently to dangle at my side.

The nurse eyed me strangely. "Never seen a case of dead arm like that before…"

She left the room. There was a high-pitched beep, and then she returned to change the film in the holder. She repositioned me several times this way. In truth, I lost count of how many times or positions. It was like the other tests in that respect. I did not mind what they did with my body, so long as it was of use.

Never did I think that the tests they used me for might result in pain. And it's true they resulted in pain. Ikari-kun suffered for the tests I allowed to happen to me. He suffered for the work that resulted. I know well what it feels like to fight in an Eva, how its body seems in every way like one's own. It it didn't, I wouldn't need x-rays of my arm for a condition that was doubtless all in my mind. Ikari-kun felt0 he'd crushed Unit-03's entry plug in his own hand, that he'd crippled Suzuhara-kun, his friend. He suffered, and in his suffering, he blamed his father. He blamed everyone who was there to watch.

"If he knew what the dummy plug was, wouldn't he blame you, too?"

I snapped to attention. No one was supposed to be in here. The nurse had left to the control room. Who spoke to me?

"Wouldn't he hold you responsible?"

It was the _me_ from inside the Eva. It was in the room with me. It walked toward me. It snickered. It sneered.

"Wouldn't he hate you the way he hates everyone else?"

Why is It here? Why does It talk to me like this?

Moving forward, It climbed on the table and touched a hand to my breast. "I feel how your heart beats fast," It said. "To think that he might blame you, like all the others, for that would hurt worse than this." She flicked her finger at my wrist.

The sensation shot up my shoulder, pulsing, tingling.

"You want this more—it's easier to bear," It said. "Physical pain you understand, but trust me: it won't be enough. Sooner or later, you'll learn to let go."

I met Its gaze.

"Let go."

Let go?

"Like this."

It pushed.

And Its hand sank into my flesh. Its fingers grasped my heart from inside my skin.

"Miss?"

I blinked. The room was quiet. My chest was pale and undamaged.

The _me_ inside the Eva was gone.

"You all right?" asked the nurse, removing the last plate of film. "I've never had a patient fall asleep standing up during an x-ray before."

"I'm fine."

"All right. Well, in that case, let me walk you back to your room—"

"Not necessary."

" 'Not necessary'? Well, I can agree with that; I don't see a thing on these images, but that's for a radiologist to—"

"I don't expect the bones to be broken."

"So it's normal for you to be unable to lift your arm above your waist?"

I discarded the lead shield and opened the door. "If the images reveal something, I will accept treatment, but I am otherwise uninjured. I will return to duty now."

"But miss—"

"What?"

"Won't you put some clothes back on?"

After a moment, I donned my plugsuit once more and left radiology, but I did not return to duty.

"Oh, hello again," said the attendant at the nurse's station. "Do you still need to be seen?"

"Ikari Shinji," I said. "Is he here?"

She typed at her computer. "Room 449."

I bowed slightly and headed to the elevator. It was expected that Nerv security would take Ikari-kun here. I did not know what LCL overpressure would do to a person, but I expected, if Ikari-kun had really meant to use the Eva against Nerv, he would have to be removed from the entry plug by force.

That's how I found her—Sōryū, the pilot of Unit-02, standing outside Ikari-kun's room. Contrary to what I expected, she didn't deny her concern for him.

"He might really be finished this time," she said. "I'll bet that moron won't recover from this."

Then again, perhaps she would insult him even as he lay on his own deathbed.

But Ikari-kun was well. Uninjured, even, so she told me. That was good.

"He's probably dreaming away," she said, assured.

"Dreaming?" I said.

"Yeah. Don't tell me you don't dream."

I did not tell her—would not tell her—for I didn't understand what I saw when I closed my eyes. People often speak of dreams, yet to that time, I hadn't thought I'd ever experienced one. And whether the visions I saw of It—the _me_ inside the Eva—truly qualified…

I couldn't say.

She left, after a time, remarking that she'd have to make her own lunch in the morning, but I stayed behind. Ikari-kun slept peacefully, with Suzuhara-kun on a bed just two meters away. It was fitting, I thought, that the staff would place the two of them together. Ikari-kun had done what he'd done as much in Suzuhara-kun's defense as anything else. He would want to see his friend awaken.

But that didn't mean there was logic in what he'd done. Had the Commander not activated the dummy plug, Third Impact would've commenced, and we would be dead. If the Commander hadn't severed Unit-00's arm, the Angel would've infected the entire superstructure, just as it had with Unit-03. Then Ikari-kun would've faced two infected Eva, and perhaps the dummy plug wouldn't have saved us at all.

That is what I don't understand. What did you think attacking Nerv would accomplish, Ikari-kun? Why did you do that?

"Because I couldn't forgive Father."

We rode in a train together the next day—Ikari-kun and I did. It was late afternoon, and we went nowhere. We simply rode along the route with the glow of the setting sun—orange and bright—overwhelming the cabin.

Elsewhere in the traincar, Suzuhara-kun was there, too.

"He betrayed me," said Ikari-kun. "I could finally have a comfortable conversation with him, but now he won't try to understand my feelings at all!"

"Did you try to understand your father's feelings?" I asked him.

"I tried," he said flatly.

You haven't, Ikari-kun. I heard what happened. I know that you didn't want to fight. If your father hadn't acted, would you have survived? I was fortunate. The Angel didn't consider me a threat, but you—it could've killed you. The Commander may not show his concern, but he protected you.

"Why don't you try to understand him?" I said.

"I told you I tried!"

"And that's how you run away from unpleasantness."

"What's wrong with that? What's wrong with running away from unpleasantness?"

I think, Ikari-kun, it means you can never be happy at all. When we run from unpleasantness, we just leave it chasing after us. You don't understand. The Commander sees everything. The Commander knows everything. He is your father, and I—I have the form of your mother. I won't pretend to understand your father's feelings. I don't know why he won't show you the affection you want, but I know he must want to protect you, as he protected me. If he cared nothing for us, then why did he come for me and burn his hands that day? Why was he so quick to activate the dummy plug, even at the risk of Suzuhara-kun's life?

I awoke. The air was still and calm. Light poured through my window. It was morning; I'd slept through the night.

I never was on any train with Ikari-kun. As far as I knew, he still lay in his hospital bed beside Suzuhara-kun. I'd come home from the Geofront alone. I'd avoided the train—there are too many people on trains. I'd walked home in my uniform, the only clothes I had at Nerv. I'd slept in them. I'd slept, yet I saw something through closed eyes.

But was it a dream?

Did I mean to ask Ikari-kun those questions at all?

No. I wouldn't say those things because Ikari-kun wouldn't make me say them. The Ikari-kun who spoke to me in that "dream," that "vision"—that wasn't the Ikari-kun I know. That was the Ikari-kun who sat in bed and spoke of how terrifying it was to pilot Eva. I didn't hold that against him. I was willing to accept that person for what he was. I was willing to face the Fifth Angel alone. I wouldn't pilot with someone who would abandon their purpose, but he joined us anyway. He stood behind me, and I protected him as I was told. I bore the pain as I was told.

I didn't expect to live.

I didn't expect him to rip off the entry plug hatch with only his hands and a steel bar for leverage.

The Commander smiled at me. Ikari-kun smiled at me. And at that moment, it seemed appropriate. It felt appropriate. At first, I didn't know what to make of him—of a person who would shy away from the Commander's orders—but as we stumbled from the wreckage of my Eva, as he helped bear my weight over the rocky trail, he said it:

"I still find it frightening," he said. "To pilot Eva, I mean. Misato-san can't understand. Ritsuko-san can't understand. Even Father…he doesn't know. But Ayanami, you understand it. You know how it feels, yet you keep going. I think I'm going to try to be more like you, so when we come back from a mission, we'll both have something to come back to. We'll both have someone who understands."

That's when I was sure: the boy who hesitated to pilot as an Angel wrought havoc on the city, the boy who sat in bed as I told him I would pilot alone if I must—that boy was gone.

That boy was gone, yet my arm…still hurt.

Pilot Sōryū thought it would be pleasant dreams for Ikari-kun, but I couldn't see how. When we awaken from dreams, our lives are still here. What really changes other than that, six or seven or eight hours later, we've simply lost time? There is no escape from reality. We're merely caught in the landslide of fate's desires. We do what we're told. We sleep, and we dream. We dream and dream, but we always wake up.

Until we don't.

That's how it was at school that day: nothing had really changed overnight. Ikari-kun and Suzuhara-kun remained absent, recuperating in the hospital ward. I dare say the class treated Ikari-kun's absence with less interest than Suzuhara-kun's. Ikari-kun was known to be a pilot, after all. That the both of them would be absent generated some interest. At lunch, Aida-kun peppered Pilot Sōryū with questions—about the battle of the day before, about Unit-03 and whether Suzuhara-kun was the pilot—which she vehemently rebuffed over a boxed lunch of simple steamed rice.

Then again, I had nothing to eat at all.

"Aren't you hungry, Ayanami-san?"

The class representative stood before my desk, holding a stack of two lunch containers.

"I have an extra lunch if you want it," she said. "I brought one for someone else, but he's absent."

"I'm fine," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"Certain."

"Oh. I see."

She saw, and yet, she wouldn't leave.

"The truth is, I made this lunch for Suzuhara."

That was unfortunate. Unapproved foods would be forbidden at the hospital ward.

"I make too much for myself and my sisters. Maybe I pushed him into taking it?"

I don't track Suzuhara-kun's eating habits or decisions.

"You were talking with him during lunch the other day, weren't you?"

I was.

"Maybe he said something about it?"

I looked out the window. "He did not."

"Hikari, don't waste your time with her," said Pilot Sōryū, stabbing her rice with her chopsticks. "She doesn't say anything useful."

But the class representative continued. "Ayanami-san, do you think Suzuhara likes you?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're wasting your energy on a doll," said Sōryū.

"Ayanami-san," said the class representative, "do you know where Suzuhara is now?"

"Why do you ask me that?" I said.

"First, don't you say another word!" Sōryū bolted from her seat and inserted herself between us. "Hikari, let's go find some place private."

"Suzuhara-kun is at the Nerv hospital ward," I said.

Sōryū gaped. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you know what you've done?"

"Asuka, please." The class representative undid Sōryū's grasp, freeing her wrist. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't I…? Well how could I—"

"Why didn't you tell me Nerv was kind enough to treat his little sister?"

Sōryū's face twisted in an expression I was at a loss to recognize. "Well, it's true they're treating his sister, but…"

"But what?"

"They're also treating Suzuhara-kun," I added.

"Don't say it!" yelled Sōryū. "Hikari, sit down for a second, will you?"

"Why?"

I thought the question was directed to Sōryū, but the class representative stepped closer to my desk instead.

"Why are they treating him?" she asked.

"To save him from battle wounds, the doctors amputated his leg."

The two boxed lunches smashed on the classroom floor. The students were silent, for a time, and only one among them dared break the stillness.

"So I was right!" said Aida-kun. "Tōji really was—"

"Shut up!" said Sōryū.

But curiously, the class representative didn't chastise Sōryū for her harsh language.

"Please make sure to mop the floor when you leave," she said, her gaze wavering, unfocused. "Mop the floor. Check the desks for chewing gum. Wipe down the chalkboard and beat the erasers. Please don't forget to deliver printouts to the absent students." She blinked, puzzled. "I'm afraid I don't quite remember whose day it is to do that, but I'm sure it's in the log. I'm sure…"

She wandered to the exit. Her shoes made no sound against the floor.

"Please excuse me," she said, and she shut the door behind her.

Sōryū slammed her hands on my desk. "What were you thinking—telling her something like that so casually?" She narrowed her eyes. "Does it amuse you, to try to make others as dumb and soulless as yourself?"

Through the window, a girl in our school's uniform ran frantically along the sidewalk.

"Answer me!" Sōryū grabbed at my shoulders and spun me in my seat to face her. "Don't you dare stay silent and think I don't know you're listening!"

She squeezed.

"Oh? So there _is_ a kind of pain you understand." She huffed. "Figures. Dolls only know what it means to have their strings cut. Fine by me then. Only the commander's personal mouthpiece would say, 'oh, Suzuhara lost his leg,' like it was nothing, like you'd burned a slice of toast! That's why you're a doll, and this…"

She jammed her thumb into the bone of my shoulder, her arm shaking with the tension in her muscles, her clenched jaw.

"This is so you don't forget how much I hate you and everything you are. You're like a pale shadow of a person. You're not even real."

She pushed me back, against my set, and marched from the room, slamming the door against its frame.

As I said, nothing had really changed at all. To dream was but a respite from the world we all wake up to.

The school day continued without incident, although notably, no one would perform the class representative's duties in her absence. We stood, bowed, and sat for our teachers in silence.

Through the lessons, I gazed out the window, but I was forced to keep my left arm in my lap.

When the day was over, the class departed. There were duties to do, yet without the class representative's stern reminder of assignments, the floor went unmopped, the erasers unbeaten. The class representative was—and is—meticulous and demanding with the allocation of classroom duties. There would be much trouble if she found the room in that state.

Whenever she meant to return.

Perhaps Pilot Sōryū was right. I did not understand, at the time, why the class representative had been so interested in Suzuhara-kun, but as the halls cleared of students that afternoon, I could guess why. Just as I hesitated when Ikari-kun disappeared with the Twelfth Angel, so too did the class representative forget her duty. A different set of circumstances, but the same result.

And if I had been more than a shadow of a person, I would've understood it when she stood at my desk, not afterward, when all the school was empty and the chores she enumerated for the class had gone undone.

I learned several things that day. I learned that a typical school day might produce about one wad of chewed gum for every three desks. I learned that the standard mopping solution in the janitor's closet actually left a slight film, producing, at certain angles, a peculiar rainbow shine. I learned that it's acceptable to beat erasers not against each other but against the wall or any other flat surface, for this I had to do with my left arm dead at my side.

As sunlight poured through the windows, I stacked two sets of papers, each identical to the other, and collected them in separate folders. There were only two people absent that day, and they could both be found in the same place.

Of course, they wouldn't see these papers for some time. Suzuhara-kun still had much recovering to do, and Ikari-kun they kept sedated, but when they awoke, these papers I carried would be there for them. Life marches on as we dream, after all. Their obligations to their studies piled up. Whether they chose to follow through on those obligations or shirk them—that was not my business. I expected neither of them to be awake when I arrived, and indeed they weren't.

"Oh!" said a voice. "Hello there."

I didn't expect the class representative to be there, either.

"Did you think I went home crying?" she said.

"No," I said. "I saw that you were headed in the Geofront's direction, but without security permission, you shouldn't have been allowed inside."

The class representative held up a Nerv key card. "Katsuragi-san found me outside and gave it to me. She said Asuka wouldn't stop bothering her until she did it."

"She is persistent."

"Katsuragi-san is?"

"No."

"Oh." She tilted her head, looking at me. "What do you have in your hands there?"

The folders stuck out from my bag.

"Today's printouts," I said.

She smiled. "I may not remember whose day it was for that, but I know it wasn't yours."

"I took it upon myself to deliver them. No one else would have the clearance."

She nodded. "I suppose you're right."

She sagged in her chair slightly, watching Suzuhara-kun from the corner of her eye. His breathing was steady and consistent. The folds and lumps in the sheets almost masked the fact that his left leg was no longer there.

"He's lucky to be alive, isn't he," she said.

"Yes."

"Was it bad? Whatever it was that you all were fighting?"

"It was Suzuhara-kun we were fighting. The Angel had infected his Eva. We were ordered to destroy it."

She glanced at the bed behind her. "And it was Ikari who stopped him, wasn't it?"

I paused. The truth of that statement was complex.

"Yes," I said.

"It's just like before then. Suzuhara blamed Ikari for hurting his sister, but Ikari was just doing what he could to protect us all. Eventually, Suzuhara learned to forgive him. I don't think he'll blame Ikari now, either." She pressed her hands to her lap. "At least, I hope not."

"I apologize."

She blinked. "For what?"

"I did not adequately prepare you for the news of Suzuhara-kun's condition."

She looked at me for several seconds, open-mouthed.

"I knew he would be the pilot," I said. "That is why I spoke with him two days ago."

She glanced away, nodding. "I see now. I knew—I thought—something was wrong with him. He was very quiet. You knew why, so you went to assure him."

That…is not how I'd characterize it.

"I'm glad for that," she said, smiling. "Thank you."

I pulled an empty chair to Ikari-kun's bedside and placed my bag beside it.

"You don't think what I'm doing is strange, do you?"

I doubt most humans can conceive of what it means to pilot Eva. As a judge of what is "strange," I am inadequate.

"I mean, when you told me Suzuhara was injured, I couldn't think of anything else. I couldn't _do_ anything else. I knew I had to come here and see it for myself."

"You didn't believe it?"

"No, I did—I believed it the moment you said it, but I wanted to see anyway. I had to see." She folded her arms, shivering. "I think I've already cried all the tears away."

Tears?

"All I can do is sit here and stand vigil for a boy I've never told I liked him, whom I'm barely friends with, to whom I'm only 'class rep.' It's not a name, just a title—a title anyone could have—yet I know, if he were gone, I'd miss him. I'd regret all the things I said and all the things I didn't say. Tell me, Ayanami-san, is that strange?"

"I don't know," I told the class representative, and I meant it. I couldn't judge her. I could only sit with Ikari-kun and read the book he gave me. Novels are a means to experience waking dreams, worlds that don't coincide with reality, yet we can escape to them at any time of our choosing. Dreams wouldn't solve our problems, but that night, I could think of nothing better to do nor any better place to be. I didn't speak to the class representative for the rest of the evening—she left by 1800 to tend to her sisters—but I kept watch on Ikari-kun and Suzuhara-kun with the French Revolution for company. It seemed everyone had someone important to them, someone they cared for above all else: Suzuhara-kun to the class representative, Lucie Manette to Carton and Darnay.

Was Ikari-kun that person to me?

And to the Commander, who was there?

Not me. The Commander does not treat me with favor or exception. I think he treats everyone the same. Cold pragmatism is the only comfort he offers. He doesn't apologize for the pain he inflicts to save humanity. It's his duty. He shouldn't be sorry.

I read slowly that night. I read to ingrain every word in my mind, to see clearly the world of 1789 and forget the two boys who lay before me, dreaming of worlds I could never enter or know, but in reading so thoroughly, I lost track of reality. I lost track of time.

"You're still here?"

I blinked. I wiped away the small crust of mucous that had formed at the corners of my eyes. The clock on the wall read 0800. It was morning; I had slept, somehow. Ikari-kun's book stood on its edge, bending the pages as it had come to rest on the tile floor.

"I didn't think I'd come back to find you here," said the class representative. "Didn't you go home?"

No, clearly I did not.

"Oh, I take it Ikari was well enough to leave?"

Leave?

His bed was pristine—the covers folded, the linens pressed.

Ikari-kun was gone.

"Ayanami-san? Where are you going?"

"Please excuse me," I said, stuffing the paperback into my bag. Wasn't it plain to her what had happened? It was plain to me. If Ikari-kun had awakened, he wouldn't have left without waking me, too. Only one person could've done this. Only one person had the power to do it.

"You again?" said the woman at the nurse's station. "What is it this time?"

"Ikari Shinji," I said. "Where did he go?"

"You mean the boy they wheeled off on a stretcher this morning? The one who was shackled in irons?"

The Commander had taken him. There was no doubt.

As I rode the elevator to the Commander's office, I decided quickly on my argument, on what I would say. Ikari-kun had committed a grievous offense, of course. I could say he wouldn't do it again, but that would be short-sighted. That could very well be wrong; I had no way of predicting what weapons or methods the next Angel would muster. I could say Ikari-kun could be taught, even conditioned, to fire on our enemies, to fight even when his own instincts told him not to, but the person that remained would be no more real than the dummy plug, no more alive than I. More and more, I realized that, if the Commander truly meant to lock up and dismiss his son, there was only one recourse to avoid it: the Commander would have to show his Ikari-kun more than stern, logical reactions.

The Commander would have to forgive his son. The Commander would have to show him compassion.

The bones in my shoulder ground against each other. Such openness between father and son, I knew, wouldn't be easy.

You do care about your son, don't you, Commander?

The elevator shuddered. The doors opened. A pale blue glow penetrated darkness. This was _not_ the office I'd grown accustomed to, for I expected to bathe in the reflections from a hundred mirrors, all beaming the light of the morning sun into this room, yet instead, I found black. I found the Commander sitting back at his desk, watching a monitor, while Vice Commander Fuyutsuki stood beside him.

"Ikari," said the latter, "you have a visitor."

The Commander sat still, like a statue. He leaned back, his expression blank, and the images from the panel reflected off his shaded glasses. It was only there that I saw what was on the screen, what the Commander watched when he was alone—or nearly so—in the dark.

What I saw…was red.

It gushed and sprayed over buildings. It dripped from rough, plated fingers. The Commander watched this footage in silence, and I was glad for it. I didn't want to hear Unit-01 crush the windpipe of Unit-03. I didn't want to know the sound of an Eva's vertebrae popping out of alignment. How the Commander could stand this footage—the footage of blood that I hate—I couldn't comprehend.

And I would spend no time trying to. "Commander Ikari," I said.

"I'm glad to see you, Rei." His eyes shot over the rims of his glasses, meeting my gaze. "I feel we have much to discuss."

"I wish to speak with you," I said.

"You may speak then."

"It is about Ikari-kun. He's been arrested."

"The pilot of Unit-01 used his Evangelion to threaten this facility. He has been remanded to the detention ward, and he will remain there until I have evaluated the evidence and passed judgment upon him."

"You will revoke his credentials, remove him from the pilot roster."

"I can't in good conscience entrust humanity's survival to children who exhibit profound errors in judgment."

" 'Children'? More than one?"

"Perhaps." The Commander typed at his console and turned the monitor toward me. "Tell me, Rei: what do you see here?"

There were crosshairs, computer readouts. There was Unit-03 mid-stride, walking away from the camera.

"This is not relevant to—"

"Answer the question," said the Commander. "What is it?"

My arm throbbed, yet I held still. "A frame of footage from my gun camera," I said.

"You had a valid firing solution here, don't you?"

"I did."

"Yet the records show you didn't fire. Why not?"

"Why didn't you fire?" he said.

"I hesitated."

"Why?"

"I thought I could find a better shot—"

"Impossible. The computer calculated the best point to neutralize the target."

"Not to neutralize the target."

"That was the mission objective."

"That was not _my_ objective."

The Commander raised an eyebrow. He placed both hands on the desk and rose, staring.

"What were your orders?"

"To destroy the target."

"And those orders were never rescinded?"

"No."

"Never countermanded?"

"No."

"Then who told you to disobey them?"

"No one."

"Why did you refuse to fire?"

"To find a shot that might save the pilot."

"Who gave you this instruction?" he asked.

"No one."

"Then why did you follow it?"

"Because I knew Suzuhara Tōji was the pilot. Because he was the pilot, I hesitated."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Why?"

"Because when most pilots die, they cannot be replaced."

"All pilots can be replaced. All pilots are expendable."

"Even me?"

The vice commander stepped forward, but the Commander put up a hand, warding him off.

"Unit-01," he said. "You failed to stop the target and put Unit-01 in jeopardy."

"That is so."

"Did you value the pilot of Unit-03 over the pilot of Unit-01?"

I said nothing.

"Did you value Unit-03 over Unit-01?"

I said nothing. My arm tingled. It pulsed. It ached. The Commander's breath touched it, and it stung. He turned the conversation away from Ikari-kun's actions. He made the conversation about me. Why did he ask me these questions? Why did it have to continue?

"Speak," he said. "Did you consider what would happen to Unit-01 if you didn't engage the target? Did you consider what would happen to this facility, to our mission, to this project?"

I said nothing.

"Why are you silent?"

"My arm," I said, clutching the wrist. "It hurts."

The Commander frowned, his gaze inscrutable. "Take your injuries to a doctor; they're irrelevant to me," he said. "Don't try to distract from the question at hand."

My arm fell limp at my side.

"Did you think of the damage that would've been done to Unit-01?" he continued. "If the dummy plug hadn't saved it—did you think about that?"

"Ikari!" The vice commander made no move, but it seemed his voice alone was enough to startle the Commander, who met his gaze from the corner of his eye.

"I see," said the Commander, turning the monitor back to his side of the desk. He punched in more commands at the console and sat, returning to the position he occupied before I'd arrived. "Rei, leave us."

He did not ask twice. He didn't have to. I'd already made a grievous error in assessing his character. I'd thought the Commander merely resisted showing compassion—that he deemed it better for himself and others if he dealt only in cold truth.

I was wrong. I finally understand what kind of person the Commander is.

He's a man without compassion for others at all—not for me, not for the son he would throw out from his life.

No, there must—there _should_ be a way to avoid that. Ikari-kun said we would face piloting together, that we'd always have someone to come back to who understood. Ikari-kun wouldn't abandon that. Ikari-kun wouldn't abandon me. Ikari-kun had compassion for others. Wasn't that why he refused to fire on Suzuhara-kun?

Wasn't that why I grew to care for him?

That's what Suzuhara-kun said, and at the time, I wasn't certain, but I think I've seen what people do when they care for one another. When I told the class representative what had happened, her eyes unfocused. She lost control of her body and dropped the lunches on the floor. She shook; she trembled. It _was_ strange, yet even more strange is that I know the feeling myself, for as I rode the elevator to the detention ward, I trembled a little, too. To persuade Ikari-kun to stay was one thing. To convince him to stay despite his father…

I didn't know if I could do that.

"You!" said the guard at the cell block. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm to see a prisoner," I said.

"I didn't hear anything about that."

"Then I will tell Commander Ikari you refused to comply."

The guard flinched for a moment, fingering his pass card. "Who did you want to see?"

He walked me past several cells. Why there were so many I can't say, and it appeared not all were empty.

"Can't you lend me a cigarette?" Inspector Kaji hovered behind his cell door, watching us through the bars. "Don't I get a last request? There's a woman I'd like to see. Several, in fact."

The guard kicked at the door, and the sound reverberated through the long, empty hall. At a cell on the corner, he swiped his key card into the lock, and white, fluorescent light flooded into the room.

"Oh," said Ikari-kun. "Ayanami, is it?"

"Present your hands," said the guard.

Ikari-kun held out his wrists, palms together, and the guard fitted him for a pair of interlocked shackles.

"Knock when you're finished," said the guard, and he locked the door behind him, leaving Ikari-kun and I in the darkness of the cell.

Ikari-kun hunched over, dangling his bound hands between his legs. "I'm surprised," he said. "I thought no one but Father would come."

"Commander Ikari is intent on dismissing you from Nerv," I said.

"That's fine."

"You will no longer be allowed to pilot."

"That's fine."

"Is it?"

"Yes, it is. I won't pilot Eva anymore. I won't be forced to maim and kill anymore. I won't do this for Father when all he'll do is betray me."

Betray?

"I can taste Tōji's blood in my mouth. It sticks with me. I can't wash it out."

"It wasn't Suzuhara-kun's blood. It wasn't in your mouth."

He turned his head, watching me. "You _know_ that doesn't matter."

"If you apologize to your father, you might be allowed to stay."

"Why should I do that? Why should I reach out to him when he's swatted me down every time? I tried to understand him, but I don't. I thought it'd be all right when he praised me, when he told I was a good pilot, but it isn't. If this is what being a good pilot is, if I have to hurt my friend and feel nothing for it, I won't do it. I can't. I won't face that suffering and get nothing in return. Not anymore."

I saw then. I saw quite clearly. Ikari-kun and the Commander had their differences, but they weren't so different. Ikari-kun wouldn't attack his friend, not because it was good or right to refrain but because he wouldn't stand it in his heart if he did it. It hurt _him_ to do it. Ikari-kun wanted someone to help share the strain of piloting Eva, but when it became too much to bear, it wouldn't bother him if he left them—left me—alone to it.

He, like the Commander, ultimately cared for himself. The boy who helped carry me from my from my entry plug, who shouldered my weight as we stumbled down the mountain that night—that boy never existed. That boy never was. There was only a boy who lay naked in a hospital bed, who buried himself in the covers and preferred not to eat, only to sleep.

I knocked on the steel door with my left hand. All the pain from that time forward I would have to bear alone, and though the vibrations pinched and tingled up my arm, I said nothing.

"Ayanami?"

The guard unlocked the door, and I stepped into the light. "What?" I said.

"Is there something wrong?" asked Ikari-kun.

A key unlocked his shackles; the guard folded them up and tied them to his uniform belt.

"No," I said.

"I mean with your arm."

My arm?

"You're holding it. Does it hurt?"

I let the limb dangle at my side. "Yes. Ever since the battle. It doesn't stop."

"I see. To pilot Eva has only hurt both of us. That's why no one should have to do it. That's why I won't go back."

You don't see, Ikari-kun. You don't see because I was wrong. That boy who took my hand and asked me to smile still lived. Perhaps he showed himself only for a moment, perhaps he was gone just as quickly, but I heard his voice there, in an instant, like a sole harmony among ten thousand cacophonous sounds—a tone faint and soft and fleeting. A tone that would become ever more distant as the guard shut the door on us and the slam echoed through the cell block, low and cold.

I didn't say goodbye to that person. I didn't want to. I didn't know how to, and I realized, no matter what I did, I had no way to convince him to stay, no way to persuade his father to let him. To pilot Eva hurt us, but to see him go hurt more—not because Ikari-kun cared for no one but himself.

Rather, it hurt because he did care, yet he was leaving anyway.

The next day, Ikari-kun was sent to his father, who dismissed him in a conversation that, I have heard, hardly took ninety seconds.

The day after that, Major Katsuragi took Ikari-kun to the train station, and he departed on a 13:38 fare to New Atsugi.

It was about then that the Fourteenth Angel attacked. As Unit-02 engaged the enemy, the Commander ordered me to Unit-01, but during the startup sequence, I felt something. I saw something.

I saw it. I saw _her_. I saw myself in a labcoat, with brown hair and dark eyes.

_I won't accept you. Not again._

A jolt. My lungs spasmed; LCL was forced from my mouth.

And that's when I understood: why the Commander, when he interrogated me, never mentioned his son by name; why he could watch the footage of the battle and never flinch, never look away. Just as there was a piece of me inside Unit-00, there was another piece inside Unit-01.

No, that piece belonged to someone else. It was a piece of Ikari Yui.

A piece that rejected me, the girl who was made in her image.

A piece that rejected every one of me, for I, not the Commander, used Ikari-kun's hands to hurt his friend.

It's been two days since I spoke with him, and now, as I write this, I am certain. I wish to sleep; I wish to dream—not a fake dream, not one that reflects reality. I don't want to see the me inside the Eva haunt me in my sleep. I don't want to speak with Ikari-kun on a twilight train that goes nowhere except to the seat of our miseries, the hills of our nightmares.

I wish for a dream that I never wake up from, that I never have to leave behind to return to reality.

"Rei."

The Commander stands in the doorway now. He cannot see me behind the curtain, but he knows I'm here.

"The N2 mine is ready, as you requested. Major Katsuragi has some tactical scenarios to use the weapon with, despite Unit-00's condition."

"I understand."

"What do _you_ intend to do with it?"

"Attack."

"I see. We'll speak more when the battle is over, then."

No, we won't.

The Commander leaves, and so do I. I go to sleep now—to sleep and dream. I go to dream a dream that is eternal and everlasting, and I regret only that another of me must inevitably take my place, but that will be her concern, not mine. All I can promise is that I won't haunt her, not if I can help it. I expect they'll destroy this notebook, but I'm glad to have written in it.

Unit-00 is ready now. Good night.

Goodbye.

* * *

For notes and commentary on this chapter and others, visit my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com.


	4. After Zeruel

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**After Zeruel**

_Chapter Four_

The books I've read tell of many ideas and theories—of how man has embraced knowledge and science to make himself great, even when, compared to lions and elephants and whales, his body is small and frail. They tell me the role of RNA as a template to construct proteins in our cells. The pictures show how a double helix splits into two and gains complementary strands to divide, to replicate. The authors speak of Miller and Urey, American biologists who, sixty years ago, thought the old Earth was a soup for organic life to emerge from, thrive in, and grow.

I glimpsed that world once, in my sleep. In that time, the Earth was hot and rocky. The air was heavy and oppressive, but it did not bother me. Past lava floes I walked. I descended into an ocean, a sea that would boil should the weight of the air give way. I know, for I felt the heat on my skin, yet I ignored it. I kept walking until the waves lapped at my waist, and in the dark, tinted blue, I saw it—a film, a streak, of red.

It came from me.

It came from inside me.

And when I looked down and glimpsed my reflection in the water, the pale white giant with seven eyes gazed back.

That's when I woke up. It was a blue place. A dark place, lit by the moon. A bandage covered my left eye, but with the right, I saw.

I was still alive. I'd charged the Angel, but that did nothing. I shoved the N2 mine through its AT Field, but that did nothing, so why must I still be alive?

Why were any of us alive?

I got up. I've been in a hospital room before. It's blank. It's empty, and the view from a single window tells little. Cradling my bandages, I limped to the hallway. There should've been damage, destruction outside, but the rubble hid in moonlight's shadow.

"Rei."

He sat outside my room, his hands folded. In the white moonlight, the tint of his glasses is almost imperceptible.

The smudges, traces of blood on his jacket, his glasses, were not.

"Commander?"

"The Angel sliced off Unit-01's arm in the cage," he explained. "I'm fine, as are you."

I did not ask that.

"It's unlike you," he said, "to be reckless."

"I felt there were no other options."

He looked at me, watched me, studied me. The Commander's gaze is unavoidable. It follows you. It sees everything. I could feel his stare at times, even if he were behind me. It used to be that was a tingling feeling, something to seek out, but since then…

His eyes were cold. Even with the stain of blood on his glasses, his gaze was icy. You dismissed my pain, Commander. Why are you here now, watching over me?

"I'm tired," I said.

"Sleep then." He rose. "Sleep as long as you need."

"Good night."

He nodded, walking off.

"Commander Ikari?"

He stopped.

"Why are we alive?"

The Commander turned his head slightly. "Unit-01 defeated the Angel."

That…was not what I asked. "How?" I said. "Who?"

"That boy."

Ikari-kun did? He came back for us?

Click. The double doors down the hall shut, and the Commander walked off, into the next section. He left me to the pale moonlight and my own reflection in the glass.

In truth, I didn't want to sleep at all. I followed the Commander's footsteps from afar. I left the hospital ward and descended, back to the Geofront.

Back to the cage.

On the way down, I heard the story of what happened in whispers. I saw the damage. The Angel had smashed its way into the control center, leaving it in ruins. The blood of an Eva stained the cage walls, but Ikari-kun had been inside the Eva. He fought the Angel until the Eva's reserve power failed, and even then…

The Eva came to life. It devoured the Angel, consumed the S2 engine. It could no longer be limited by power, by time.

That's why it sat in the cage with bandages and improvised restraints. It was something to fear, something uncontrolled. It had Ikari-kun inside, unwilling to let him go.

"A bit unsettling, isn't it."

Though the cage was quiet, it wasn't wholly empty. Major Katsuragi stood on the catwalk before Unit-01, looking up as one admires a statue, a work of art. She yawned. She scratched herself. She rolled her shoulders, yet still she kept her eyes on the Eva.

"It's alive," she said. "It's alive, yet we keep it caged, like a beast. We use it, we drive it, but we hardly know what goes on inside."

Perhaps not, major. If you did, you wouldn't call it an animal, though it may behave as such. You would look at that exposed eye, green and unwavering, and you would know it's not just a creature's gaze. It _knows_. She sees you. She feels what's inside her. She protects what's inside. That's her son she's cradling. Ikari-kun came back, even though he didn't want to. He did what was needed, knowing it would hurt, and now his mother comforts him. Even in that shell, that armor we put on her, she knows. She acts.

She watches us.

"Should you really be here?" asked the major. "All banged up like that?"

"Should you?"

"True that, true that, but…" She frowned. "It's been two days, and I can hardly bring myself to sleep, let alone go home. I keep looking at it, and I wonder—what are we doing here? These Eva are great weapons, you know, and as long as they worked, I thought I could ignore what I didn't know about them. They killed Angels, and that was good enough. It was. It used to be, but now…" She gestured to the Eva. "What do you think's going on in there, for Shinji-kun?"

He must be happy. Mothers are important to people, and Ikari-kun—he misses her. He missed her, even though he can't remember her face, but that doesn't matter: he's seen it in me many times now. He may not know what she looks like, but she left an impression with him. Not quite a memory, but an imprint, something he could recall fondly as he visited her grave site, as he watched me wring out towels for school.

But how a mother would comfort her son—I've never had a mother. All I could tell the major was the truth of that.

"I don't know," I said.

"Don't you?"

The major watched me from the corner of her eye. Her pose was relaxed, lazy, unkempt, but she focused her attention on what interested her: not the Eva but me instead. Sometimes, the major is irritating. She makes jokes—I'm told they're amusing, or at least that they're meant to be. I may never understand what is amusing about an inflated cushion that makes noise when one sits on it and releases the gas inside. Apparently she did this to the control center staff once. I'm not sure what she had against them, but for all of the major's unprofessional tendencies, when it comes to fighting the Angels, she is business-like. She is competent. She leads, knowing that others will follow. Her quick thinking is valued here, needed even, but in that, she is a tool, like me. A tool for the Commander, a tool for men who have even greater plans than that. She cannot know what the Eva are, what they represent, but she wants to. She brings the same energy to that quest as she does the killing of Angels. That's why, instead of the lazy, inattentive prankster, a clinical mind stood before me, hiding behind a mask of idleness, of ignorance, but I would give her nothing. What she wanted I had no power to give.

"I don't," I said.

"Really? Then tell me, Rei, what drove you to make a suicide run on that Angel? You're lucky to be alive, you know."

"No."

"You're trying to tell me you didn't think you'd die?"

That's not what I said. As much as the major has earned respect for her tactical successes, she is too persistent. She misunderstands. All people do.

"Now listen to me," she said. "I won't have a pilot taking extreme risks without orders, without at least some discussion, but you don't care about that, do you. There's a reason you went out there with a mine and blew yourself up. That Eva—it moves by itself; it's alive. It's not just a hunk of flesh. What did it do—did it speak to you, Rei? Is that what it's doing to Shinji-kun right now?"

You must stop, major. These questions will do you no good. The people around you all know more than you think. Doctor Akagi? The Commander? They are the ones who keep the knowledge out of your grasp. Me? I'm nothing. I'm no one. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be. I'm only here because you saved me. I'm only here because he brought me back for her.

And she was watching me. I froze in place; I couldn't move. _She_ was watching me!

The major—she saw it, too. "You know, the Eva aren't the only mystery here, Rei."

I pulled my foot up from where it stuck to the catwalk. I stepped, slowly at first, but my strides hastened. Like with the Commander, I could feel her eye on the back of my neck. They never wavered. She wouldn't let me go.

"Rei!"

I walked faster.

"There's a reason that green eye is following you!"

Of course there was. Ikari Yui recognizes her body. She knows herself. She knows I walk with something that belongs to her.

I left the cage that night, and I didn't return for some time. For days after the attack, Doctor Akagi and her scientists worked to free Ikari-kun from inside Unit-01, but their preparations were long and extensive. After a few weeks, Major Katsuragi stopped hounding the doctor for updates on her progress. The Eva was left to its cage alone.

And I?

I was allowed to stay in my apartment until I healed from my battle wounds. Even after the doctors removed the bandages and told me I was fit to go to school, I declined. I had books to read at home, and _she_ would be there—the pilot of Unit-02, angry and resentful for being alive, for being saved by someone else. In one respect, I can understand those sentiments, but the way she yells about it—the way she screams—those reactions, those expressions, are things I could never do. Nor do I want to. I think her shrill shrieking would shatter an AT Field, given the chance.

A new Angel had yet to come, and to pass the days from dawn to dusk, I'd read. I read of generations upon generations of _Drosophila_ flies, whom Woodworth and his colleagues observed for every minute of their short lives. I read of Mendel and his honeybees and peas. What a parent gives to her child is divided. She can only give half of herself, nothing more, and more often than not, what give brown eyes over blue, black hair over blonde, are unrelated, determined only by randomness and statistics. Our fate is dealt by rolls of dice, and only in the long run can they average out. The Central Limit Theorem is God, you see. That's what the books say. I finished them, and there was nothing more to read. I put on my uniform and went to the library.

It's an experience—walking in public, I mean. At Nerv, the doctors, the technicians—they know me. They know my name, even if they don't quite know (not all of them, at least) what I am. I think, for that, they can overlook the strange, but the people I meet on the sidewalk, as I wait to cross an intersection, they don't understand. They can't. They glance for a moment, and then they seem to catch themselves. They look away. I think that's supposed to be polite, for the children—they don't know any better. They stare. They ask their mothers, their fathers, their brothers and sisters, "Hey, what's wrong with that girl? Why does she look like that?" The mothers chide them for asking and insist they be silent. The fathers follow their sons and daughters gazes and flinch when I catch them, but even as they set their eyes on the crossing signal, some of them are daring enough to look through the corners of their eyes. They study me. They watch and they wonder, even as their attention should be on the red sedan to their right whose engine roars, its driver impatient to get on his way.

It's for this reason, though I read much, I make few trips to the library. The journey to and from it is withering.

I'd been to this branch several times now. The staff have come to notice me. Because I return and check out books in the same day, it's necessary to get my account cleared by hand rather than drop books off in the bin. That is why I know the librarian: a woman in her late twenties, she is polite, and unlike others, she doesn't stare. She never has. She smiles at me, from time to time. She seems glad, I think, to see a student reading books.

"It's just a little rare these days," she'd said once. "Since the Impact, children seem to think the world's changed too much, that everything from before has no meaning, but humanity has an eternal quality about it, don't you think? Science, philosophy, fiction—they all survive the ages. They change and evolve, true, but we can't abandon what we know, what those who came before us have learned. Don't you think so, too?"

I'd said nothing then, and the librarian's cheeks flushed, but despite her reaction—her embarrassment? —she's spoken to me every time I've returned books. That day was no exception.

"You're a week early," she said.

I was?

"Ah, forgive me for noticing, but Ayanami-chan is like clockwork," she said. "She always takes just enough to get by until the due date."

I didn't realize I was so methodical. I opened my bag and took out the books one by one. The librarian scanned them in without further comment until…

"Oh? This one doesn't have a barcode. Did it come off?"

That—that was a mistake.

"It's yours?"

I nodded.

"It's a beautiful copy. A beautiful story, too, don't you think?"

I blinked.

"You haven't finished it?"

That…was not the issue, but the truth would take too long to explain, and you'd likely be shot if I told you.

"Oh, I see then. Well, I'm glad you've read it. It's one of my favorites."

An assistant placed the returned books on a cart, snickering. "Every book is Bookstore-san's favorite."

The librarian blushed. "Well that's true. Even so…" She examined the dusty leather jacket. "It's a nice change for you, Ayanami-chan. Is this something for yourself?"

Not precisely. It was an assignment. The others, the textbooks, those are "for me," but yes, in a way, this one is different. "It was a gift," I said.

"Ah, I see. It's always better to read with friends, isn't it?"

I do not know. Perhaps it is.

"Oh, are they, they're not—" She winced. "Are they not here anymore?"

"It is…unclear."

"Well, hopefully it'll give you both something to talk about when they come back, right?"

Possibly. When Ikari-kun is freed, we can discuss Dickens' use of symbolism well after the due date for our reports has passed.

"Or if you prefer something else, that's fine," said the librarian. "There's always something to read here. I know it's not your usual taste, but there's been an expansion of the fantasy section. Perhaps that's something you'd like to try?"

To read of worlds that have never existed, will never exist, based on rules and ideas, dreams and principles, than can never be?

"You don't have to, of course. Wizards and spellcraft aren't everyone's taste. And it's true, a little courage is the real magic of the world. Try to remember that, won't you, Ayanami-chan?"

I've written it down. Whether it's forgotten…

"My best to you and your friend Ikari-kun."

I nodded and placed my book back in the bag. All mention of witchcraft and mages aside, I considered what to take back to my apartment for the next few weeks. Something by Freud, perhaps, or Feynman. Not the librarian's suggestions, I realized, but I don't care for fantasies, for things that have no basis in the real world. What exists must ground us, keeps in touch with the universe, or else the world we perceive is ephemeral, volatile, and it is no more real than luminiferous aether. The speed of light—that is physical, a bound on reality. It constrains what others can know of us.

Wait.

If knowledge is so constrained, how did the librarian know Ikari-kun's name? I watched her, over my shoulder, but she caught me. She smiled. I fled. I walked off, looking for some place away from her. Between the shelves I found a cushioned leather bench, and I settled there, safe behind the works of Edogawa Ranpo and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I took out the duty, old book. As I'd told the librarian, it wasn't that I hadn't finished it. There's just…nothing else to hold on to. Most other books must, at some point, be returned. They belong to the library, to people, to others that aren't me. There are texts I've asked for, that the Commander has had delivered to me on my request, but by men in uniforms with clipboards and scanners.

This one? It was a gift. It wasn't something I sought out. It's mine.

I can read it anytime I choose.

I held the book open to that last page. There are two men in this story, the barrister and the marquis. The barrister is identical to the marquis, so much so that few, if anyone, can tell the two apart. The revolutionaries want the marquis executed, but the barrister intervenes. He has the marquis smuggled from the prison. He takes his place at the blade. He thinks those words, but has no chance to write them.

" 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.' "

It's fiction. It's not real, but the sentiment expressed—does it linger? Does it persist? It's on the paper, after all. It's printed in dozens of languages even now, a century and a half since the writer, the author, sent out the last installment.

The barrister forward to rest, as I do, and the French revolutionaries give it to him, but he and I are not the same. He sees his rest as a reward for a good deed. He imagines how justice will come in the days after he's gone, how the marquis and his wife will name their son in his honor and be thankful for his sacrifice. To go to the guillotine for another man takes loyalty, devotion. It takes, as the librarian said, a bit of courage. That's why I'm not like the barrister. The barrister doesn't seek death; he accepts it as a consequence. To show devotion, to go against one's wants and desires—that takes courage.

It was warm outside, a perpetual summer, and the citizens, the people of Tōkyō-3, took refuge in the library to read in the shade and air-conditioned comfort. They would've perished long ago were it not for me, for the pilot of Unit-02, for Ikari-kun, and that day the Angel came, two of us had orders. One of us, I'm sure, relished the chance, but the Third—he had no orders, and I think he disliked that he had to, but he, more than the rest of us, had the ability, the prerogative, to choose.

I think you're the stronger one, Ikari-kun, stronger than I. But are you strong enough—do you have the will—to escape your mother's womb? To emerge from that comforting, safe place?

You might. And if you do, that's another reason why you'd be stronger. I wouldn't want to come out.

I collected five texts take back with me and checked them out with the librarian. There wasn't enough room in my school bag for them all, so I kept Ikari-kun's book tucked under my arm. As I left, low clouds settled over the city, and though the sun still shined brightly, the first drops of rain hit the concrete, spread out, and dried. It was for a moment, then, that I hesitated by the door to the library lobby. Ikari-kun's book would get wet if I walked out with it exposed. A library text would get wet if I interchanged them. I could've returned a book, even so soon—that would resolve the matter—but I'd yet to decide.

That's when I noticed it. The passers-by took out umbrellas or covered their heads with briefcases. Most did, though some were unprotected and merely scurried for shelter.

The men in black suits and sunglasses did not.

Were an Angel coming, I would hear the sirens. There were no sirens. There was just the rain. There were raindrops and their black sedans, gathered in a row on the far side of the street. There was no reason for them to be there.

Unless they'd come only for me.

I went back inside.

"Something the matter?" asked the librarian.

I could imagine so. I knew so. These men follow his orders. They do his bidding, and they don't ask questions. What I'm wanted for and why—they may not even know. I've doubted him, and I think he knows it. He's not one to let that be. He's not one to forget.

I went back through the aisles, but they came. They walked in step. They took off their sunglasses. They searched the shelves with their eyes. I peeked between the books, looking back at them.

"I'm sorry," said the librarian, rising from her desk. "Is there something we can do for you?"

"You will not interfere," said one.

"Oh? On what authority do you say that? What is your name?"

The man in black touched the device in his ear. "Lock down the building. No one comes or goes."

"You can't do that!" said the librarian. "You have no right!"

"We have every right under the authority of the United Nations Special Directive. Stand aside."

"You may say that, but I think we both know this has nothing to do with the UN and everything to do with one man's orders. Ikari Gendō, is it? Your 'Supreme Commander'?"

The man in black glared. "Take her, too."

She pulled; she yanked. She struggled to free herself. "Go, Ayanami-chan!"

I went. I ran. Away from them, I made it to a steel door in the back corner and pushed the red bar.

KII-KII-KII! KII-KII-KII!

Despite the cry of alarms and sirens, I waited. I stuck to the wall. The patrons of the library rushed out obediently, and in their midst I fell into line. I did not look up. I descended the steps to street level, but I heard them. I picked out their footfalls, even among all the others.

I reached the street and ran down the alley. Into a sea of umbrellas I waded, I watched. The crowd rushed for cover from the burgeoning downpour, and I followed them. Not into another building; I'd be trapped there. I went down, underground. I swiped my card at the turnstile, and a set of traincars rumbled past. It was humid down below, with the rain still falling and the heat of the day unreleased. The air was heavy. Oppressive. Like the Commander, when he's thinking, when his focus is only on destroying Angels and protecting what is dear to him. What stands in front of his gaze, what dares to crop up before his sight…

Whatever it is, it dies.

I've run from him. I've strayed. I tell myself I wish to sleep, but I don't. I sleep every night. It is no solace. My only solace is in the light—that yellow, glowing beacon of light in the black, in the emptiness of the underground tunnel. It cast shadows on the track, and the riders at the platform leaned over the gap, to look for it, checking their watches.

I stepped among them. I touched the tip of my shoe to the bright yellow line. "Caution," read the paint. "Step back." But I didn't. I felt the rumbling, and even as the others moved, I stayed there. I watched the headlight, and it grew bright. It overwhelmed the shadows. It was a harbinger of time, a path to new places, to relief, to solace—to a far better rest than I've ever known…

"Pilot Ayanami."

A hand caught my wrist. The man pulled, and I stepped back. I backpedaled. The light zipped by, and a collage of metal and glass ground to a halt.

"Come with us," said the man in black. "Commander Ikari wishes to speak with you."

So it was. The Commander's voice cannot go unheeded. Such is against the nature of things.

I went with them, let them drag me along to their armored black sedan. The rain seeped into my clothes and wrinkled the pages of the leather-bound book. They drove easily to the outskirts of town, for the agents of Nerv's security intelligence are methodical and sure of themselves. In the hills are the cargo movers, and the convoy descended, into the Geofront. Unlike the city above, the Geofront is regulated. The light inside varies depending on the sun and clouds, but "rain," if one could call it that, comes regularly at ten in the morning and ten at night. The air was dry and cool. I shivered.

We left the three sedans in a warehouse at the base of the cargo mover and walked the grassy, unbeaten path. Near the perimeter of the Geofront, we approached a structure, a home. It was a log cabin, the wood and bark almost black against the pale surface of the great wall behind it. Smoke escaped from the chimney. Two steps down from the main door, he watched our party approach, hands behind his back.

"Come, Rei," he said. "Let us eat."

On his orders, the men in black suits left us alone. The Commander opened the door and showed me a closet to leave my shoes. The floors shined with a glossy finish. A great window opened from the main room, but it showed only the gentle curve of the Geofront wall. To the right, through a hallway, there were marble countertops and a stainless steel sink, but we didn't go that way.

"We are to eat?" I asked.

"Indeed."

Then why were we leaving the dining table, the floor mats, the great window…?

"Not here," he clarified. "Downstairs."

He led me down a bare corridor, with lines in the wood to adorn the walls. We passed two bedrooms, one on either side, but the beds were covered in plain yellow blankets. The floors collected dust.

"Here," he said, pointing out a square outline in the floor. A pair of metal flaps secured the panel, and the Commander fingered the exposed latch. The trapdoor opened upward and away from us, resting on the end wall of the corridor. A single fluorescent bulb lit the gray, concrete steps. The trapdoor led to a bunker, and from the reflection of sunlight that flooded the Geofront, we descended into a domain of phosphorescent glow. Unlike upstairs, framed photos and sketches adorned the walls. In one, a series of lines connected eleven spots in three rows, forming the shape of a paddle, a boat, or, perhaps, a tree. In another, wings of light sprouted from an icy landscape. In a third, a toddler, a boy in a striped shirt, sat on a curb and cried over a skinned knee. A woman wearing a labcoat crouched beside him, dabbing at the wound with a cloth, but all that could be seen of her face was her fine brown hair and a slight hint of comforting smile at the corner of her lips.

Though a heavy steel door, the Commander showed me to a dimmer place, a large square room. A single candle burned in the darkness. There were a table, two chairs, and plates for each of us.

"It's been some time," he said, sitting, and motioning to me to do the same, "since we last dined together."

That was so, but before, it was in your office, and the vice commander was never far. This place is strange to me. This place I do not know.

He folded his hands before his mouth. "The security agents tell me you fled from them."

"I did?"

"You disagree?"

"I was brought here in a timely fashion."

"And the librarian? The one who told you to run?"

"She checks out books for me."

"She knew my name."

"I did not tell her."

"No?"

I hesitated. From the Commander's perspective, it must've appeared that I did. I was at a loss myself to explain otherwise. "She's being held, then?" I said.

The Commander sat back. "No. One would think the world had changed in the last fifteen years, but a friend of a the Fujiwara is still difficult to touch."

I understood. The Commander is…well, he is the Commander. To him, there can be only friends and enemies, just as the Angels are our enemies. He makes alliances, agreements with others. He has a goal, and he furthers it with every dealing he makes—in negotiations with the Fujiwara clans for release of their friend, in lobbying the JSDF to become the sole Angel defense in all the land. The Commander knows exactly what he's doing all the time. I've seen that. We're here, dining together in a different place. That is no accident, no impulse. The Commander wants me here and nowhere else.

A waiter arrived from the far door, carrying a glass bottle of mountain spring water. He bowed before each of us, undid the cap—

"No." The Commander waved him off. "Bring us some wine," he said. "The Chinon."

"Very good, sir." The waiter bowed again and left. The Commander squinted, scratching something off his wine wine glass.

"Today was not the first time security intelligence has followed you, Rei," he said. "It seems they've been observing your actions for some time."

I said nothing.

"You face scrutiny. You were reckless with Unit-00. Its damage will take weeks to repair."

"I'm sorry."

The Commander averted his gaze. "Truthfully, perhaps there was nothing else to be done. Unit-00 can be repaired."

"Or replaced, if it is no longer useful."

He glared. His eyebrows twitched. "It is not merely those old men who wish to monitor you, Rei. _I_ was the one who ordered security to observe. I'm the one who's concerned."

Concerned? For me, Commander? Is that why you waited outside my hospital room? Is that why you brought me here? I'm not sure I can believe that. I remember the look in your eyes when I stood before your desk in the dark. You played the footage of Unit-01 and Unit-03 in battle over and over. Back then, my pain—my arm that hung dead and lifeless at my side—was irrelevant to you, so please, stop. Don't make me go back any further. I don't want to do that. I don't want to. I don't.

"Have I given you reason to doubt me?" he asked.

"No."

"I see."

From the distant door, the waiter approached, carrying the wine bottle with both hands. The Commander made no move to acknowledge him, nor did I. The waiter adjusted his bowtie and drew a corkscrew from his pocket.

"No," said the Commander. "Leave it."

"Sir?"

"I'll pour it myself."

"Of course."

The Commander turned the bottle toward him, eying the label as the waiter left. He took off his glasses and held the candle over the text. "I never liked this wine," he said, "but it's unique. It's special. The grapes were grown in the Loire Valley. It's gone now, since the Impact. Decimated. Ruined for decades, they say. It was a favorite…"

He replaced the candle; he slipped off his gloves. In the shadows of the flame, I glimpsed his palms—the irregular folds of skin, the discoloration, the wounds that would never heal. The cork came out quickly.

"You're not yourself," he said, starting to pour. "And it would be I'm to blame. At first, I thought to be stern, to shelter you as best I could."

"Shelter?"

"What must come when the Angels are gone is a task only you and I can perform, Rei. That weight of the future on us is isolating, oppressive. That is what you feel, isn't it? I know because I've felt it, too." He sniffed the wine glass. He sipped. He closed his eyes and touched the red liquid to his lips.

It was strange to see him like this—his hands bare, his eyes exposed. I think, in retrospect, I'd seen him that way only once before: in the entry plug, as he leaned through the half-open hatch.

He set the glass down. "Interesting," he said. "It's just as I remembered—too dry, too light, though perhaps…" He tilted the glass, and the wine sloshed within. "Perhaps it is my taste that has soured, not the grapes." He shook his head. "As the time grows closer, the world slips away from us, doesn't it? It feels farther and more distant with each passing day. Tell me, Rei."

He touched me. He touched his fingers to mine.

"Is that how you feel, too?"

I—

I don't know how I feel. I don't know if I ever have. What I feel should be simple. It should be just the warmth in the Commander's hand, the texture of his fingertips. He was right: people reach out to me, and I have to turn them away. The librarian, the major—they won't understand; they can't understand, and I don't want them to. I keep the truth inside, but when I'm with the Commander, he knows my secrets. He knows me. He knows everything about me. There is so little that stays hidden from him for long. I've changed, and he's noticed. He's noticed, and he's touching me. He wants to help me. He wants me to be something new after all.

There was a subtle, sloshing sound. My eyes focused. The wine flowed from its bottle, spinning in the glass.

My glass.

"Try it," he said. "It might agree with you."

The wine settled. The last traces slid along the inside of the glass, mixing, merging with the rest. It was bright. It was aromatic, like the smell of fruits and berries in the spring.

It was red.

"Go on," he said, squeezing my hand.

I held the glass by its stem. I tilted it toward me. The wine was red. Red with a tinge of purple, and in the dim, flickering candlelight, it looked like the beginning of a deeper sea—a current in an ocean of red.

An ocean of blood.

"It would be natural," said the Commander, "for us to take solace in one another. To take comfort—"

"Oh?" said a voice. "Comfort in what, you say?"

The Commander recoiled. He eased my hand down, to the table, and set the wine glass aside.

"Doctor Akagi," he said. "You're early."

"Not early enough, it seems," said the doctor, standing in the doorway behind me. "You've already opened the wine."

The Commander put on his gloves. "Give us a moment."

"Shall I wait on the porch?"

"That will be fine."

The door inched shut, and the Commander polished his glasses with his jacket. Blinking, he took another sip of wine. His eyes drifted around the room.

"Rei," he said.

"Commander Ikari?"

"You're excused. You remember the way out?"

"Yes."

"Good."

I bowed once on my way out, but the Commander looked only to his dwindling glass of wine.

I reentered the sunlight to a puff of smoke. Doctor Akagi rocked in a chair on the Commander's porch. She wore a white blouse, a khaki skirt, and tan stockings. It was…not how I was accustomed to seeing her.

"Tell me, Rei," she said, exhaling so the smoke rushed out. "Did he touch you?"

"Yes."

She gawked.

"You saw."

"Ah." She laughed to herself. "So I did." She tapped her cigarette, spilling the ashes on the floor. "He's very charming, but don't be taken in by him. There's only one thing that man sees when he closes his eyes, even as he dreams, even as…"

She shook her head, snuffing out the cigarette on the armrest.

"It's her face, you know. That's why, even if you care nothing for yourself, you should be wary of him. You should protect yourself. Everyone who doesn't ends up cold."

She left the cigarette on the railing and opened the front door.

"Cold and alone."

I stood on the porch, in front of Doctor Akagi's chair. There was a window behind it, shaded by the roof, and it was only thanks to that, thanks to a bit of protection from the reflected sun, did I glimpse my reflection, my face.

Her face. He touched my hand, and he saw her face. He drank the wine and gagged on it, but he swallowed it anyway. He swallowed it not because he favored it, but someone he knew, someone he cherished, loved that wine instead. _She_ did, and everything I do, I do for her. I live to resemble her, to imitate her, like a girl's inanimate plaything. I pilot Eva not for humanity, not for the safety of the city above us, but to fight the Commander's war. When I'm done, he will use me, and only then can I no longer be. If I don't follow him, if I don't listen, I can be replaced. I _have_ been replaced.

I want to die.

I want to die, but I can't. He'll bring me back, over and over, and what will I become? What will I be but a shadow, a demon like the part of me inside the Eva has become?

No, that's wrong, too. I'm already a shadow. It's just that I thought, I hoped, I _wished_ that I could be something different, that if I piloted Eva, I could bond with them? That I could become something like them?

Even my reflection in the window doesn't know how to react. It may never know.

I walked back along the grassy path. The men in black suits had left me to walk alone, and I liked it better that way. I could walk slowly. I could take my time. There is no reason to go quickly when one goes nowhere.

"My," said a voice. "Look who one finds strolling through the Geofront these days."

The path took me through a field, a melon patch.

Why there is a melon patch in the Geofront I still don't understand.

"Come to help a man with his weeding, perhaps?" said Inspector Kaji.

No. That wasn't what I'd come for at all. At that point, I'd wished I had walked faster. Perhaps I wouldn't have been seen.

"Ah, wait!" said the inspector, dusting his hands and planting a weeding tool in the soil. "Don't run," he said. "I don't bite. Well, not too hard at least. Where are you going?"

"Home," I said, crossing the patch.

"Home is where you make it," he said. "And I've seen that complex of yours. It looks like something that shouldn't have survived the Second Impact."

Maybe it shouldn't have.

"You're coming from Commander Ikari's place, aren't you?"

I stopped. I didn't know about the cabin before today. Doctor Akagi did, though, and this inspector—what does he 'inspect'? —knows about it, too?

"He's quite persuasive, isn't he? Commanding? Magnetic, even?"

"And?"

"I know he was surprised to see you sacrifice yourself to destroy that Angel," said the inspector. "Him, Katsuragi, Doctor Akagi."

Irrelevant.

"Even Shinji-kun."

Ikari-kun?

He saw me?

He watched?

"He stood where you stand now." The inspector shaded his eyes, looking toward the Nerv pyramid. "I take it he was in a shelter, but something must've made him come out, see the fighting. Even he, as much as he wanted to be somewhere else, couldn't stay away. Seemed he thought he had something left to do."

I nodded. "Ikari-kun stopped the Angel, saved humanity."

The inspector laughed. "It may be a terrible thing to say, but you can't guilt-trip Shinji-kun with the fate of mankind. I'm sure Katsuragi tried, but such a responsibility he doesn't feel adequate to holding up."

"Then why?"

"I think he saw Asuka beheaded, saw you go up in flames and be cut down. It's hard to care about what happens to people. It's easier to care about a person, though."

I shifted my weight, and the book between my arm and my body slipped an inch.

"So what did he want with you?" asked the inspector. "Commander Ikari, that is."

What did he want? To drink wine he didn't care for? To sit in candlelight with a ghost, a shadow?

"To relive a memory," I said.

"Seems there are people like that. All they want to do is relish in the past." The inspector wiped the sweat from his brow, crouched to his knees, and took up his tool, digging through the soil. "They're dangerous, you know. They corrupt the future to reconstruct the past, and it never comes back quite the way they think it should."

"You don't do that?"

"Call it foolish, but I prefer change for change's sake. Let the past stay pristine and treasured. I make my own goals, my own future. I decide what I want to do and who I want to be."

"You want to tend melons?"

He looked up, surprised, but quickly, his expression changed to a smile. "Let's just say this patch is strategically located for maximum yield."

As curious as the inspector's philosophy was, I couldn't subscribe to it. Perhaps for someone like him, who has little more to worry about than crickets and cutworms, it would do, but I don't have that kind of freedom. I don't have that kind of choice. I went home for the rest of the day, the rest of the week. After ten days, I was summoned to Nerv again. Doctor Akagi's work to revive Ikari-kun had progressed far enough. I was needed for other research, and I complied. I saw the Commander in the hall; he looked at me, but said nothing. Every day I returned to Nerv, I circled Unit-01 on the catwalk, and even with the armored helmet replaced, her eyes still followed me. They watched and followed.

Until day thirty-one. That day, Doctor Akagi and Major Katsuragi supervised the operation from the backup control center. They meant to bring back Ikari-kun, and with their instruments, their tools, their scientific weapons, they meant to push and prod him from his mother's grasp, but it was as the barrister said—there are far, far better rests to go to than exist in this world. The plug opened and vented hot, steaming LCL. Ikari-kun's clothes washed away in the flood. I read the last line in the book and closed the back cover. He'd made his decision, and I couldn't blame him for it.

"Shinji-kun!"

But there was a splashing, commotion. From the open heart and core of the Eva, Ikari-kun came out. He was naked. He was wet. He coughed LCL from his lungs, and the major embraced him. What I felt, in that moment—I thought I would fall over the railing. Why the major cried, why she showed such grief and sadness over Ikari-kun's return, I can't understand.

The white glow of the Eva's eyes through its helmet dimmed and faded. Did the mother let the son go, or did he choose to return to this place himself? It was, I imagined, a little of both, and from that, I could take solace, take hope. I'm not like the inspector. I can't make a future, a purpose, out of nothing, but Ikari-kun is back now, and I can watch over him—not as a shadow of his mother, but because I want to. Because I choose to. Because he willed himself back into this world, this place I've so desperately wanted to leave, too. Maybe, if we stand together, like we did that night on Mount Futago…

No. I cannot hope for that, but I could be satisfied for a day. I left the catwalk with my book and bag in hand. I entered the elevator, pressed a button to return to the surface, and from the polished steel, a reflection looked back at me. It was pale; it was white. It wore a purple mask with slits for seven eyes.

I blinked. I looked away. I'm tired of looking at myself in mirrors and seeing other people, other things.

I think I might go to school tomorrow.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

It's a pleasure for me to return to this story, after having worked on _Identity_ for so long. As always, Rei's voice is elusive and hard to pin down, but I've tried, as best I could, to capture her essence, her spirit. This episode in the anime doesn't feature her for long at all, so I was given considerable leeway to depict her journey toward humanity. I hope the creations here, then, are acceptable, enjoyable.

A more in-depth commentary on the various facets of this chapter should be on my blog later today. You can read it at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com. As for the rest of this story, I intend to finish it before returning to other projects, so chapter five should come in a more…reasonable timeframe. Until then, see you soon.


	5. Before Arael

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**Before Arael**

_Chapter Five_

"Take Takashi!"

It was late morning on the athletic field, the time when the earth starts to reradiate heat and becomes just as oppressive as the sun above. On that dry, warming soil, the class divided into two camps. The teachers had assigned a pair of captains to form teams. The first choices had been made quickly; each captain knew to pick off the most athletic, skilled, or experienced of our number first, lest the other take them instead. After that, the selections slowed. There was debate, controversy. I dislike controversy. I dislike debate when it takes place not in a wide, spacious lecture hall but a muddled pile of human bodies, all whispering to keep their thoughts and opinions secret.

"What do you mean I'm flat-footed?" said one of the unchosen. It seemed the deliberations weren't so secret after all.

We waited in those two groups, in our plain white shirts and gym shorts. For the moment, the dilemma was with my party. One of the boys in the group had the captain's ear. His name was Saotome, and he was an outfielder, short but quick on his feet. He was an early selection, but he had an interest in another—a taller, lanky child. Kunikida Takashi was his name. I think he usually plays outfield, too, but he is slow, and when the ball flies toward him, he covers his head with his arms and crouches.

I'm not sure this is an effective catching technique.

"Like I said," Saotome-kun repeated in hushed but forceful whisper, "take Takashi!"

The captain, Ono-kun, was reasonably tall. I'd seen him play before. He takes pride in hurling the ball past the batters, as much as the mandated underhand throw would allow. When he shook his head, the locks on the back of his head swayed. "Not a chance!" he said. "Takashi? He doesn't swing the bat; the bat swings him! Let's get Nakamura, see? He's big enough to catch. Would _you_ try to run him over?"

Saotome-kun looked away. I don't think there was a logical counterpoint to be made, but then, the source of his argument wasn't logic in the first place.

"To win, you do what you have to," the captain, Ono-kun, assured him.

"I don't care about winning; Takashi's my friend. I want him on our side!"

"Don't care about winning?" said the captain. "What kind of guy are you?"

"Behave yourselves, gentlemen," said the teacher stiffly, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Or I will choose your next teammate instead."

"Nakamura!" said the captain, and he welcomed the burly catcher over Saotome-kun's unhappy whine. He had reason to be unhappy, I'm sure, but I thought the captain had made his motives very clear: Saotome-kun and Kunikida-kun may have been friends, Saotome-kun and Ono-kun may have been friends, but friendship isn't transitive. It doesn't extend from one to the other. Where Saotome-kun, were he captain, could be expected to favor a friend, Ono-kun was in no such position. He took the action best for his team. It was a correct action, and the events of the game that followed proved it.

It was the second inning. I was content to defend first base while a runner occupied second. Aida-kun batted and hit a line drive over me, into the vast expanse of right field. The runner on second broke slowly, but he picked up speed around third. Saotome-kun, the right-fielder, cut the ball off quickly. He hurled it over me, one-hopping Nakamura-kun about a meter up the third-base line. The runner contorted. He tried to dodge Nakamura-kun, but he slipped. His feet skidded on the dirt, and amid the cloud of dust, the catcher calmly tagged him out. The runner pounded the earth in frustration, and Saotome-kun too sat in right with a sigh. The game was over; that was all that would fit in our physical education time. Our team had won, but that hardly comforted Saotome-kun. He'd thrown out his friend, Kunikida-kun, on the last play at home. The teachers soon called us in, and Saotome-kun wandered behind us. Ono-kun went to raise his spirits.

"Come on! Told you we'd win it, huh?"

Saotome-kun merely stuffed his glove into his captain's arms and walked away.

Friendship. I think it must be a difficult concept even for people, or else there would be no fighting, no wars, save for the one we make against the Angels, the one they make with us.

Our class had thinned somewhat. Tōkyō-3 had been attacked a dozen times. The children and their families were right to be frightened.

"Stand."

The class representative leads us when teachers enter and leave, but as the class has emptied, I believe she's lost something.

"Bow."

The edge to her voice has softened. Her commanding presence for chores and assignments has long since waned. She does her duty as instructed. She leads us, as required, but—

"Sit down."

There was a time when she would be the first in and out of her seat by a wide margin. Now, the gap between her and the rest of the class is smaller, more reasonable, more…ordinary. I'm not sure why that is. Is it possible to enjoy such a duty? No, I don't think it's that, either. Perhaps I cannot understand it, cannot explain why the class representative is different now. I can only observe that which is no longer there. Where others would see light, I spy only its absence, what was left behind.

"What was left behind in the aftermath of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire should be familiar to you," said Teacher. "For three decades, France was a place of constant strife and fragile governments. There was no continuity. There was order, from time to time, but it could console you one day and abandon you the next. What should strike you, though, is that it was a calamity entirely brought on by the inability of men to leave peacefully with one another, to govern fairly and without bias or prejudice. It took no act of God to throw France into turmoil. In that, I think we can take solace. We were victims of something beyond our control, so maybe yet there is hope for this world after tragedy. Perhaps man, having had no hand in this disaster, can rise above it. It is a comforting thought." Teacher sighed to himself, shaking his head. "It is likely also unrealistic."

The only thing that seems unrealistic is a lecture that doesn't tie into Second Impact in some way, but that is what I've come to expect from Teacher, and I would not call him on it. As the others took studious notes on the wars of Indochina and their similarities to Nineteenth-century turmoil, I looked out the window. It's habit for me, from when I came here to follow the Commander's word, but those orders have long since been rescinded and forgotten.

I was there by choice, yet I looked out the window.

As did Ikari-kun.

I could see him faintly, in the reflection of the laptop screen. The cursor blinked; the fields were blank. Ikari-kun sat back, his hands on the keyboard, but his fingers wouldn't move. Since he returned from within Unit-01, Ikari-kun had been…preoccupied. That's an imprecise word, but I cannot explain it further. I've seen him be childish and petulant toward his father, toward his duty. I've heard him espouse the belief that life is a futile thing, meaningless and without direction. Conversely, I've felt his touch through my plugsuit glove as he told me never to say goodbye, for it made him too sad, sad for me, hardly more than a stranger.

The Ikari-kun who came out of the plug was none of those, however. I cannot conceive of what his experience must have been—gone for weeks to return to what, the cares and worries of living? I don't know I would want to come back. Perhaps that is what he yearns for, to drift into nothing and never return.

No, I can't say that. I shouldn't say what I desire and presume people would want that, too. What weighs on Ikari-kun may be that complex, but it could also be painfully simple.

"Why do you feel like it's always your business to get in other people's way?"

It was earlier today, before first class, when _she_ made her presence known with her unbridled ranting. I'm sure the class could hear them coming before they even reached the door.

"But I make lunch for you every day, remember?" Ikari-kun had said, walking in behind her.

"That's not the point!" said Sōryū.

Ikari-kun winced. "I'm just saying I could make your favorite tomorrow, if it'll make you feel better."

"Why would I want you to do that?"

"I just thought—"

"Why would I want you to do anything? You're always doing, even when you complain about having to do things! Try stopping once in a while. Try getting out of my way!"

Ikari-kun clenched his teeth. "Well, sorry for making a simple offer!"

"Asuka, Ikari-kun, stop that!" said the class representative.

"Why?" they both shouted back.

The class representative flinched, but she stood her ground, glancing at the back row desk next to Aida-kun. "If not for classroom order," she said quietly, "then…"

Sōryū had sat with a huff. Ikari-kun followed the class representative's gaze, looking dour, and I dare say he wore that expression for the rest of the day. What was it? Disillusionment? Weariness?

Pain?

If anything could raise Ikari-kun's spirits, I'd thought it would be the quarantine. Unit-01 is a being of godlike strength now; with the S2 engine, a limited power supply can no longer keep it in check, and there are people who fear that. _I_ would fear that, and so, the task falls to the pilot of Unit-02 and me. Ikari-kun joins us for synchronization tests. He stands at the ready, but if all goes well, he won't join us in battle. Is that not enough?

Evidently not, for Ikari-kun leaned back, resting his feet on the chair in front of him to an audible squeak.

"I hope my lecture isn't boring you," said Teacher, facing the window.

Ikari-kun sat upright. "No, sir!"

"Good. Now where were we? Ah, yes, the Reign of Terror, a time not of panic in the streets but still a mass hysteria, a collective thirst for blood, for vengeance, but more importantly, for understanding and blame. We search to blame someone or something for our misfortunes. The revolutionaries blamed their king, and so they abandoned him, just as when, in the days after Impact, people all over rebelled against their governments, calling the response and aid inadequate…"

The only thing inadequate was Ikari-kun's attention span. His eyes drifted to the window, as mine have done, but there was a difference: I know why I wish to be out there, on the other side of the glass. Why Ikari-kun should want it, too—that was a mystery to me, and I felt something: a drive, a compulsion.

I think I felt worry.

The computers we're given to take notes are red. They're sophisticated. They're networked. You can send messages between them, and only the sender, the recipient, and some administrator in another corner of the building would know. At least, that was what I'd been told, for when I turned my head and put my hands to the keys, I realized the sensation of that plastic beneath my fingertips was unusual. The keys were cold and inert. I pressed them, and the computer—

BEEP.

The computer was not supposed to make that sound.

Teacher stopped by the window, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. "Is there," he said at last, "something you need help with, Ayanami-kun?"

I looked down, into the screen. Behind me, the stares and glances of my classmates fixed on my computer, on my seat. I shook my head slowly, and after a fashion, their attention wavered.

"All right," said Teacher. "Hopefully we've had enough bizarre occurrences for one day, yes?"

There would be fewer, surely, once I reasoned out how to work this computer. The first thing I looked for, however, was the mute button. Only then did I dare look at the prompt again, with its blinking cursor.

_rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$__

It's an ominous sensation, for anything can go where the cursor lies, but I put aside my doubts and typed at the prompt.

_rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ write sikari3  
Did you feel something inside the Eva?_

I watched him in the reflection of my screen. He leaned forward, blinking, and looked my way.

_rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ write sikari3  
Did something inside try to speak to you?_

He frowned. He put his fingers to the keyboard and typed slowly, deliberately.

_Message from sikari3 at hakone-mid-2A on tty8 at 11:56 ...  
Yes. It was some kind of comforting presence. It was trying to keep me there._

So she did reach out to him, and for a person like Ikari-kun, that sensation would be difficult to forget—difficult, I think, to resist, too. Why are you here, then, Ikari-kun? What is it that convinced you to come back?

_Message from sikari3 at hakone-mid-2A on tty8 at 11:57 …  
Do you think they're all like that? All the Eva?_

Are they comforting, protective of us? Perhaps for you, Ikari-kun. Perhaps even for _her_. For me, when I sit in the entry plug, it feels like the other me, the Thing inside the Eva, is always smiling its wicked grin.

_rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ write sikari3  
No._

That was the best answer, the safest answer to give. It was also a lie. It was inadequate. It might give comfort, but that feeling would be false. No, I was dissatisfied with that. I kept typing.

_But the Eva are alive. I don't know how much they know of us, how much they think or see or feel, but I'm certain of it-they are alive. They have souls.__

I left the cursor there, at the end of the line, and my ring finger hovered over _return_. What good would this information do him? It would stir more questions, more wondering, more confusion, and each question would be harder to answer, harder to satisfy, than the last.

_Message from sikari3 at hakone-mid-2A on tty8 at 11:59 ..._

What?

_Was there something else you wanted to say?_

He stopped me. He interrupted me. What I typed out, what I would've said, lay stranded several lines up the screen. I'd never hit _return_, and now, I was disconnected from those words. It was as if they never came from me at all.

I hit _Control+c_, and the blinking cursor at the command prompt greeted me. I had only one more thing to say:

_rayanami3 at hakone-mid-2A:~$ clear_

And as the eight chimes of the school clock echoed through the halls, it was like none of it had ever happened.

"Stand!"

I closed the red laptop and put it inside the desk. I do not usually need to eat lunch. I tend to stay in the classroom and watch the sun trace its path, but that day…

"Bow!"

I would've been uneasy there.

"All right," said the class representative, "dismissed for lunch."

Ikari-kun stepped away from his seat, into the aisle between us.

I made for the door.

"Ayanami!"

I had to stop. The door was closed, so I slid it open. I stood there, unable to move forward, and Ikari-kun—he caught me. He had momentum. He snuck past me and blocked the exit to the hall.

"You didn't answer me," he said.

There was a hush in the classroom. Surely they were watching us, staring at us. Never mind that Teacher had his bag of notes and materials in his hand, waiting for us to clear the way. I looked to the floor and whispered the only response I could muster.

"Not here," I said. "Not now."

Ikari-kun tilted his head. "Then where? When?"

I told him the place—a location we both knew that was close by. I told him the time—later in the day, when school had long since closed. I should've said nothing. He couldn't stand in the doorway forever, but I do owe Ikari-kun something. I owe him for coming back, even if this wasn't the life I meant to hold on to. When Ikari-kun is near, I feel sometimes that walking, breathing, feeling are tolerable things, that I can bear them, that the burden is somehow shared, though I know that not to be true. That's why I owe Ikari-kun what truths I can spare, whatever the Commander hasn't explicitly forbidden. He gave himself to pilot Eva. He gave up what he wanted, what he hoped to get away from. When I have the choice, is that something I should reward with only lies?

Of course, Ikari-kun did not give himself only for me. The Inspector said so—he saw _her_, too.

"You."

I'd gone to the roof. From up high, I saw the mountains and the ocean. I watched my classmates mill about the school grounds, but I saw little more than the hair on their heads. People are small when seen from afar and above. They're tiny and insignificant. Their laughter and giggling fade quickly, for they are transitory things. Happiness is fleeting. Pleasure is brief. A person can devote his energies to greater goals instead, abandon his friends to achieve victory in a game of softball.

But _her_ voice wasn't so faint. Her footsteps were quick and forceful. It was the pilot of Unit-02. Asuka Langley Sōryū.

"I want to talk to you," she said.

That's a rare moment.

"You thought you were being so sneaky, whispering to stupid Shinji in the doorway like that?"

I believe it was Ikari-kun who caught me. Perhaps _sneaky_ means something different in Germany? No, I wasn't being inconspicuous. If anything, I came here to avoid attention. I don't like it when people look at me. I don't want to be the target of their scrutinizing gazes. I came here to disappear. Apparently I didn't succeed.

"What is it you see in him?" she asked me. "How talented he is? How skilled he is with Eva? It's beginner's luck, I tell you. It won't last."

Those things aren't important to Ikari-kun, nor are they important to me. For me, piloting Eva is necessity. For Ikari-kun, it is a duty without a choice. There's only one person here who puts all her pride in Eva, and it's not me.

"Hey! I'm talking to you, First!"

It would be better for my ears and your vocal cords if you stopped. Please. Stop.

"Listen to me!"

She grabbed at me; she took my wrist. She spun me around.

"Come on, say something, you doll! Say anything! You pale, quiet thing—you're like a corpse! What do you think when you look at me, huh? Look at me! I'm a person! I'm vibrant and alive! I'm the opposite of you. What do you think of that?"

I think at times I've wondered what it would be like—to be more than a reflection or a shell of a person—but I looked upon her, that girl before me, with her hard blue eyes and her red hair waving in the breeze, and I knew—she was as much an outline of a person as I was. Eva drew the trail of ink that defined her. She may pilot Eva, but it was Eva that controlled her.

"You two!" A female teacher poked her head out the rooftop door. "What's the commotion up here?"

Sōryū turned, clicking her heels together. "Nothing!" she said politely.

"I see," said the teacher. "Why don't you both come down? Lunch is almost over. You need to get back to your classroom."

"Yes, ma'am!" said Sōryū.

That was fine. I wouldn't need to be told twice. I walked ahead of Sōryū, but she growled behind me, and her footsteps kept pace.

"I'm not done with you," she whispered. "Maybe for today we're finished, but I'm not done. I hate people. I hate the world. I hate Eva, and I hate being a woman. I hate my mother and father. I hate Shinji; I hate Misato. But most of all…"

She took three quick steps, catching the door where the teacher held it, cutting in front of me.

"I hate you."

Why? What is the purpose of hatred? What is the meaning of such rage? I don't understand what it accomplishes. I don't understand why someone would want to feel that way—to scowl and shout and scream. I admit there are things about people I still don't understand, and it's possible I've felt hatred and not known it, not realized what it was, but I don't think so. I don't want to feel those emotions, let alone display them for all to see. I detest that.

Perhaps if I could hate someone, it would be her, but I'm not interested in that. I wasn't interested. I had…other matters to fill my mind.

The hours passed. The schoolday concluded, and I walked to the spot I'd told Ikari-kun about—a place where people come and go but seldom stay, a place to disappear in the crowd of humanity. It was a train station with a windowed view of the city, and among the travelers and commuters, I picked out an empty seat. It's difficult to get a sense of people from my apartment window. Sometimes, I catch glimpses of construction workers as they wipe their brows, munch on sandwiches, or dig their shovels into the soil, but more and more their jobs are done by machines, with only the odd foreman or operator to oversee the task. I know how people work. I know how they come together to accomplish a goal. What I don't understand is everything else.

"Come on now…" A man and a woman sat beside me for a time. The man—I think he was a university student—touched his partner's bare arm, running his fingers between her shoulder and elbow. "Don't be so frigid," he said. "Japan is an eternally warm place now."

"Stop that!" said the woman, shoving him lightly, but she did nothing to stay his hand. "Not in public," she whispered.

"I'm sure it's been done before."

"I'm sure, but honestly, you're so impatient."

"You think so?"

"When our train's pulled up and you're not even looking?" The woman rose. "Yes, I do."

The man smiled wryly. "Where to, then, my sweet?"

"Maybe my place?"

"Oh? It's not even dark."

"Lucky for you, then. You won't fall asleep so quickly."

"I do not—"

"You do…" The woman's giggling carried over the noise of the crowd, of the waiting passengers in the rail terminal. The pair caught their train, racing inside as the sliding doors closed. I did not see them again, and that was fine. Their behavior was confusing, contradictory, a mix of resistance and acceptance, compliments and insults. Is there meaning in the saying of one thing and the doing of another?

Yes. I knew because I remembered the Commander's words at that candlelit table. "It would be natural," he'd said, touching my hand, "for us to take comfort in one another…"

I shivered. There was nothing natural about that.

"Ayanami!"

The sun had long since set. The lights of the city, risen from the earth once more, shone through the terminal windows. Ikari-kun jogged to my seat, panting, and doubled over to catch his breath.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I got a late start. Did I keep you waiting long?"

In the strictest sense, I'd been there for several hours, but I only told Ikari-kun to meet me after dark. So, as far as he knew…

"No," I said.

"Oh good, I'm glad." He stood upright. "It would've been bad if I were late. It's rare that we get to see each other outside of Nerv or school, isn't it?"

"Thirty-eight days."

He blinked.

"Since we last saw each other in a context unconnected with Nerv or school activity," I said.

"You…kept track?"

"I remember."

Ikari-kun looked up, frowning. "No, it can't be. We talked just before…in the cell block."

"That is part of Nerv," I said. "That doesn't count by your criteria."

"Oh, that's—I guess that's so. Then this is the first chance we've had to talk since, I suppose."

"Not so."

"Eh?"

"We spoke on the computer."

Ikari-kun made a face.

"I realize," I said, "that I'm being too literal."

He brightened. "Oh! It's a joke."

It was more of an experiment, a test of being as confusing and perplexing as people can be, but Ikari-kun smiled to himself, and I thought better than to explain it any further. I will have to remember this: a person can choose to misunderstand, and somehow, it turns out…funny.

"Ayanami…"

"Yes?"

"Wasn't there something else you wanted to say to me?"

Something else, yes. Something I knew how to say? No, that was more difficult. It wasn't that I was at a loss for _what_ to say, either. I knew what Ikari-kun would want to know—about Eva, about Angels, about the dreams that came to him while he slept in his mother's womb, but to state such matters as simple facts—they would feel flat and empty. Like a drawing on a page, they'd have no depth to them. What Ikari-kun wanted to know was different from what he sought. People, I think, don't seek knowledge. They want satisfaction. The Commander wants satisfaction; he hopes to cure his need. The pilot of Unit-02 is the same. I know what they desire. What Ikari-kun hopes for—praise and respect, perhaps? —I don't know he can get. I don't know that his actions, his deed, have earned him either, deserving though he is of both of them. Ikari-kun defended the Nerv pyramid. He saved us, and many are thankful, but that is not new, and I don't think that gratitude would be enough for him. I wondered if it even mattered.

It seemed there was a question on my mind after all.

"When we spoke that day," I began, "you said you wouldn't return to pilot."

"You're asking why I came back?"

I was. I did. I knew of a theory, posited by Inspector Kaji, but I preferred to hear it from Ikari-kun himself.

He frowned again, struggling. "It's, well…I didn't have a choice!"

Ikari-kun, you don't want to tell _me_ you didn't have even the capacity to choose.

"No, no," he corrected himself. "I guess that's not true after all, is it?" He sighed, put his hands in his pockets, and glanced at the roof. "Do you remember," he asked me, "the first day I was here? Back then, I didn't know how hard it could be to pilot, so when Father forced me to, I didn't know what to prepare for, how much to fight it. Now I understand how much it hurts, so I won't say I didn't have a choice. I did. I made it, and I almost chose the wrong thing. You and me and Asuka—we're the only ones who can pilot right now. Much as I thought I could walk away and pretend there were no consequences, I was wrong." He sighed. "Pain is something inevitable, I guess. I learned that as soon as I got here."

That day—I wouldn't know when it was if I hadn't gone back, looked at a calendar, and reconstructed the timeline of my life, hour by hour. I was in pain then. I was in so much pain that I shook. I can't speak to that kind of pain. My body knew how to react to it, how to express that agony. Even now, I can't put it into words, but with that pain came…clarity? Focus? The Commander meant to put me in Eva again. I was needed. There was no choice, but I had no way to know, not then, what might lie within Unit-01. If it had been anything like the twisted mirror that was the core of Unit-00…

I think I feared that more than dying. Not difficult because I don't fear death at all, but there was something else, too. There was this boy on the catwalk. I'd known he was coming. I'd heard the vice commander speak of him, but there he was—standing aside, and for that moment, as the nurses moved me out on the trolley toward Unit-01, I watched him. I judged him to be selfish. I disliked him, but then, the catwalk swayed. I was thrown to the floor, Ikari-kun—he touched me. I was vulnerable. I was in agony; it was like the me inside the Eva had come out to stab me every place a blade could sink in. That's when Ikari-kun convinced himself to pilot. He told himself he should.

He told _himself_, so why did he say…?

"What do you mean?" I asked him. "That your father 'forced' you to?"

"Because that's what he did! Wheeling you out like that, when you could barely sit up, let alone stand! He couldn't have thought I'd let you do it!" He made a fist at his side, shaking his head. "Or maybe he did…"

"I was a stranger to you."

"That doesn't matter. I knew if I ran away from that, I'd be scum. You were half-dead!"

And what of the people above ground, who fled from the Angel futilely? I see now the inspector was right: it _is_ easier to be moved, to do what is necessary, when you can see those who will bear the consequences, when those victims can look back at you or lie helpless in your lap.

"Besides, I thought maybe I was supposed to."

Supposed to?

"When I saw you in the cage, it wasn't the first time."

"You were there earlier?" I asked.

"No, it was just before the Angel attacked," he said. "I was at a public phone, waiting for Misato-san, but all the lines were disconnected. I looked down the street, and you were standing there, in your uniform, watching me."

"You're mistaken," I said. "I was at Nerv, injured, bedridden. It couldn't have been me."

"I know! That's the thing—I know all that, but still, I'm sure of what I saw! How many people look enough like you for me to make that kind of mistake?"

I looked away.

"But it's like I said, I know you couldn't have been there, so I thought later, looking back on it, that maybe I just saw what I needed to see, so that when Father sent you out to pilot instead, I'd know I shouldn't let him. I'd know I _had_ to do it. Piloting Eva has been hard and painful, but that one day I wouldn't take back."

I was glad for that, truly. I still am. I can imagine if Ikari-kun had left what would've become of me. I might've died fighting that Angel, or if I'd survived, I wouldn't have wanted to, but take that all away, I know I'd be a different person. I'd be sitting at the train station by myself.

"Thank you," I said.

Ikari-kun smiled. "It's nice when we get to talk, Ayanami."

I enjoy it, too.

The terminal vibrated and rattled. A crowd of passengers gathered at the platform, rising from their seats. A train rolled in, discharging a handful of riders and taking on dozens more.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Ikari-kun. "Am I keeping you from something?"

"No."

"But you're all the way out here. Aren't you waiting for the train?"

"No."

He frowned.

"This place is different," I said. "From my apartment."

"Oh."

"You may leave if you like."

Ikari-kun's expression changed. I don't know how to describe it, and I dared not study it for too long. Ikari-kun was the one to call this meeting. I only set the time and place. If he felt satisfied with it, if he could put aside his anxieties over the events of the past month or two, then we would both be pleased, and we would need nothing more from each other.

That's what people do, isn't it?

"Ayanami." He was still there, standing in front of me. "Let's go on the train."

"Where?" I asked.

"Anywhere. It just seems like a waste to be here and not take a ride someplace. Come on; it'll be fun."

It will?

"I promise," he said, offering a hand. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.

"We'll need tickets," I said as we left the waiting area.

"Yeah, I guess. I wonder if there's just a blanket pass to—" He stopped, looking at me. No, looking past me. He stared at the platform across the tracks, his eyes searching for something.

"What is it?"

"Maybe nothing," he said, taking a short step. "It's just…"

"Just what?"

He frowned. "I thought I saw Asuka."

There was no trace of Sōryū on the other platform, not that I saw, and Ikari-kun put aside his anxieties, purchasing tickets for both of us. I must confess some trepidation on boarding the train that night. It wasn't concern for safety—the car was well lit. It wasn't unease with the passengers, either: we chose a car at the rear, so there were few others to notice or bother us. I'd taken this train before in daylight, and then, it hadn't troubled me, but that was before I visited this place in my sleep.

The circumstances were different, of course. Ikari-kun and I sat on the same side of the car. It was night, and the shine of the city lights through the window hardly changed the brightness of the car's interior. No, I quickly understood this was a much different situation; indeed, it was so different, I hardly knew what to do. There were Ikari-kun and I, sitting quietly in the corner of a sparsely-packed traincar, with naught but silence between us and Ikari-kun's intense—and troubled—stare. He looked through the windows, as if his gaze could pierce the night.

"Are you well?" I asked.

He jolted to attention. "Hm? Oh, I'm sorry. Were you saying something?"

I shook my head.

"Sorry, that was rude, wasn't it?" he said. "It's just you and me, but my mind's elsewhere."

"You were thinking," I said. "About Eva?"

"No, no."

I looked forward. "Her, then."

Ikari-kun's eyes widened slightly. "Asuka? Yeah, a little bit."

"She seemed agitated, even more than typical."

"That's it, isn't it," he said. "I guess, you know, I didn't even realize how long I'd been gone. I thought I could come back, and everything would be the same, but it wasn't. Like with Misato-san—the other day, I saw her crying over the telephone, and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't do anything. I wanted to change that with Asuka, but she's so angry now, and she won't tell me why."

She wouldn't have, in my opinion. It may be difficult to understand people when they won't tell you what ails them, but Sōryū had told me much, even if she didn't know it. She mocked Ikari-kun for defeating the Angel where she couldn't. She…resents him? She detests him? With that, I didn't know why Ikari-kun should be so concerned. Why show kindness to someone who gave only animosity and shrillness in return? But then, I guessed it was easy—or easier—when the object of one's worries shows they care in return. I couldn't say I knew the relationship between the pilots of Units-01 and -02, but for my part, Ikari-kun's presence was comforting. It was safe, and I was tired. I'd done more thinking, more wondering, than I'd wanted. I closed my eyes and watched the formless reds and blacks of my retinas, my eyelids. It was the closest I could be to not being at all.

"Ayanami?"

There was light again. The void is formless, but it's also fleeting, at least for now.

"You must've been tired," whispered Ikari-kun, but his voice was loud to me. It was close.

My head rested on his shoulder.

"I didn't want to wake you," he said as I pulled away from him, "but the train's starting to go places I've never been to."

Indeed, we'd gone far—in both space and time. The train had emptied—our car, the car adjacent, and the car after that. We pulled up to a desolate, above-ground station, where stray pieces of newspaper and chewing gum wrappers littered the floor.

"I guess we can head back the way we came," said Ikari-kun.

That would've been wise. Expedient, even, and I would've agreed, were it not for the pair of men in black suits and ties who paced about the far platform with their fingers pressed against their right earpieces. The Commander had yet to try "comforting" me again, and I doubted he would consider it then, knowing Doctor Akagi was aware of it, too, but the agents' eyes were his own. He was watching me, always.

But he couldn't expect me to sit still.

"No," I told Ikari-kun. "We should walk."

We left the station and descended to street level. From the shadows of street lamps we emerged. We walked for a time in the dark, with only that orange halogen glow and the collimated beams of headlights.

"Are you sure you know the way?" asked Ikari-kun.

"Do you mistrust me?"

His mouth opened, but no words came out.

"I know the way," I said, and it was so, but what I knew were patterns on a map, geometries and paths and diagrams. What we walked through I couldn't have imagined. We passed by restaurants and bars, followed by the scents of grapes and ale. We pushed through lines of people who crowded to enter a den of thumping subwoofers and cascading lights. Children and their mothers ran around us, crowding a corner shop for scoops of French Vanilla and Rocky Road. These things, it seemed, were what people did with their time, and though long I'd heard of people fleeing Tōkyō-3 for safer havens, those who remained indulged themselves in pleasures. They thought they had something worth living for: the taste of food and drink on their tongues, the beat and rhythm of music, the flashing lights of machines, at which children and adults alike funneled endless numbers of coins.

"What is it?" asked Ikari-kun.

That was the question, and at the time, I was at a loss to understand. I stopped before the establishment, a building of five stories. Inside, children played on joysticks, moving three-pronged cranes to grab at stuffed bears. Older boys and girls rode mechanical horses and plastic bikes, racing not in reality but on glowing, pixelated screens. The interior was dark but punctuated with flashes. Sirens and chimes rang out, echoing to the street, with the laugher of children close behind.

"Oh, it's an arcade," said Ikari-kun.

Indeed, but what was its purpose? Simple amusement? To be dazzled in a cascade of light and sound?

"Yo, Shinji!"

The voice hailed us from behind. It was Aida-kun, who pushed up his glasses and sipped a pink, frozen mixture from a clear straw.

"Kensuke!" said Ikari-kun. "What are you doing out here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," said Aida-kun. "You're a ways out from your place."

"Ah, Ayanami and I were riding the train. We may have missed our stop by a station or two."

"Seven," I said.

"Oh really?" said Aida-kun, grinning. "And just what were you two doing that you were so absorbed in each other, hm?"

I was sleeping.

"What do you mean?" asked Ikari-kun.

Aida-kun laughed. "Still, good for you. I thought you only had eyes for Sōryū."

"What? No, you've got it wrong! Asuka and I aren't like that! And not Ayanami and me, either."

What were we not supposed to be like?

"Careful, Shinji," said Aida-kun, whispering. "You want her to hear you say that?"

"I'm serious!"

Sighing, Aida-kun shook his head. "All right, all right. I won't insist there's a coconut if you keep saying it's a watermelon, but I think everyone can see what's brown and round."

"I don't see any coconuts," said Ikari-kun.

"Exactly!"

I didn't see any coconuts, either.

Aida-kun sipped, but the pink concoction in his straw thinned, and bubbles came through from the cup. He shook the drink, looked down the straw, and tossed the cup in the nearest receptacle. "Anyway," he said, "I've got a couple thousand yen to burn through. See you two later, eh?"

"By yourself?" asked Ikari-kun.

"Ah, yeah," said Aida-kun. "Come on, you don't want me tagging along on your date, do you?"

"I already said it wasn't—"

"It's all right; you two go ahead. I'll see you at school." With a parting wave, Aida-kun jogged inside. Ikari-kun slumped, letting out a breath, and watched Aida-kun until he disappeared behind a row of game machines. Ikari-kun had said before how he was unable to comfort the major when she cried. Aida-kun did not cry, but Ikari-kun's dejection seemed much the same.

"Ikari-kun."

He stood upright, looking at me over his shoulder.

"I've never been to an arcade before," I said.

His head raised slightly. "I could show you?"

I nodded once, and that was all Ikari-kun needed. We entered the arcade, and I let Ikari-kun and Aida-kun be. I had fulfilled a purpose, after all, and I felt no need to intrude. Ikari-kun and Aida-kun amused themselves at various games. For my part, I don't understand how a gun that reloads when one shoots it away from the screen is realistic, nor is it sensible that a stone gargoyle will come to life but display its most sensitive point with an orange glow around its heart. I suspect there must be computer assistance involved in identifying such weak spots, like the targeting scanners aboard Eva, but I can't be sure.

Then again, I did not think realism mattered much there. When I heard Ikari-kun and Aida-kun bemoan a particularly unfair spawn of a level five zombie (I think that's what they said), I was sure their thoughts were on the game more than reality, and that surely was the goal. I left them alone. This game center, this arcade, was in itself an unusual place. That people would need or want so many different ways to amuse themselves—from trains that spill coins off their tracks to sets of flippers, bumpers, and metal balls that seem more about juggling than anything else. Perhaps the appeal is in learning the games, learning how to win in an environment where losing costs only a few hundred yen instead of a few thousand lives.

"No, miss, you're doing it all wrong."

I tried to learn one of the games myself. I stood before a board full of holes with a soft mallet in hand, but a stranger, a boy shorter and younger than I, snatched the handle from me.

"See, look," said the boy, dropping a pair of coins into the machine. "They come out faster and faster over time. You can hit them in order at first, but later on, it gets so fast you shouldn't try to, or else you won't hit anything at all."

The boy did a round at the game, cursing himself when his mallet whiffed and hit the hard plastic board. Even so, his score was respectable, and he took a half-dozen red tickets from the machine in one round.

"Give it a try," he said, offering the mallet back.

The boy was right, of course: once in the late stages of the round, a smooth motion couldn't hope to transition fast enough to hit each target as they appeared. It would take more speed than a human could reasonably muster.

Or an advantage previously unconsidered.

I inserted two coins Ikari-kun had given me. I braced myself for battle as I would if I sat in Eva. I attacked the targets as they rose from the board, one at a time, but where most players fought with only one weapon, I borrowed another from the adjacent station. Two hands gave me twice the speed, twice the ability to strike, and while I'm sure I lost some accuracy—two mallets were harder to control than one—it was overall to my advantage. Where the boy before me made off with just six tickets, I took home twenty.

"Ah, Ayanami!" Ikari-kun squinted, studying the score on the machine. "How did you…?"

"I whacked the moles," I said. "Repeatedly."

He made a face. "You used both mallets? The other one is so you can play with someone else."

"Oh." I held the reward between my hands. "Should I return the tickets?"

"Ah, well, nobody told you, so I guess it can be forgiven. Why don't we see what prize you can get?"

I blinked. "Prize?"

The prizes were many, but I settled on something simple: a plush gray elephant—something small and easily carried. We had a long way to go, after all.

"But why an elephant?" Ikari-kun had asked, carrying the prize as we walked.

"I've heard that elephants do not forget. I do not wish to forget, either."

"Forget what?"

For that one day, I hoped to forget nothing at all.

We said little more on the way back to my apartment, which we reached an hour later. Ikari-kun walked me to my door. He did not need to do that—the best route to the major's apartment had branched off a few blocks before—but he insisted, though he wouldn't tell me why.

"I need to thank you, Ayanami," he said, standing in the dark hallway. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had the chance to talk to Kensuke. He'd invited me to go to the arcade a couple times—I didn't know it was that one—but I guess he goes there regularly." Ikari-kun looked to the floor. "He did, anyway, with Tōji."

"I did nothing," I said.

He offered the gray elephant, a keen look on his face. "I know we didn't do a whole lot tonight, but I enjoy talking with Ayanami, and I hope you enjoy it, too."

Why? I don't know what I offer in that respect. I say little, and there is much I still don't understand about people, about living, but perhaps that is the way of things—that you are as inscrutable to me, Ikari-kun, as I am to you. I'm inscrutable because I show little, too, but that, at least, I knew how to change, if only for a moment.

"Well," he said, "good night." He walked down the hall, and the boards creaked under his feet.

"Ikari-kun."

He stopped. He looked at me, and I did something to tell him, to show him, what I felt. His smile was warm.

I hope mine was, too.

I realized later that Ikari-kun had an obsession of sorts, a drive to do things for people. A cynical person might say he did good deeds to be recognized, to feel wanted or useful, but that didn't change that they were good to do. As Ikari-kun worried over Sōryū, as he reached out to Aida-kun, he did something for me, too. He could've left me in the train station. He could've left me alone, but he didn't. He tries to help his friends, and somehow, he came to count me among them.

It was daytime again, the Monday of the following week. The cicadas buzzed; the sun was bright. We split into teams again, and this time, Kunikida-kun had been chosen as captain. His first pick was Saotome-kun, as expected. His second…

"Ono!"

The old captain from the week before jerked in surprise.

"You're with us," said Kunikida-kun.

While Saotome-kun jumped with elation, Ono-kun and Kunikida-kun eyed each other carefully until the former bowed his head slightly in respect and took his position in the group. Ono-kun and Kunikida-kun are not friends, but they came to respect each other and their mutual friend in Saotome-kun. Just as Ikari-kun did me a favor, it was time I do something for him, too.

It was not easy, choosing the time and place for it. Later that day, I was at Nerv. I met _her_ in the elevator, and at first, I thought it better to say nothing, that knowing how she detested me, she would take nothing I said to heart, but that was the easy path, and change isn't forged by taking the route that is well-worn. I know that too well. Perhaps I was a fool to think anything would come of it, but I decided, I made the choice, to speak, to Sōryū.

"As long as your heart is closed to it," I said, "the Eva will not move."

"A closed heart?" she said. "Me?"

"Yes. The Eva have souls."

"Those dolls?"

"You must know that by now," I said.

"Hah! Fancy you being so chatty all of a sudden. Maybe tomorrow it'll snow!"

That would be unlikely.

"What? Does it make you so happy that I can't pilot Eva? Don't worry. When the Angel comes, the great invincible Shinji will defeat it for us! We don't have to do anything. They only need Shinji! As long as Shinji's here, everything will be fine!" She sighed. "First Shinji tries to sympathize with me, and now the wind-up doll, too. I really must've lost my edge."

"I'm not a doll."

"Shut up! You'd do anything if you were ordered to! You'd kill yourself if Commander Ikari told you to!"

"I would."

She glared. Her hand whipped across my cheek. The elevator doors opened, and she backed out, seething.

"Then you _are_ a doll, just as I thought! I hate you for that!" She trembled. "Everyone—I hate everyone!"

The elevator doors closed. I wouldn't follow her. I made my effort to reach her, and she refused it. That was fine. No one ordered me to. It was my doing, and that's why I could be sure of it.

I'm not a doll.

Not anymore.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

This was one of the formative ideas I'd had when starting this story–Shinji and Rei on a date, so to speak, though neither would call it that. It is the pinnacle of Rei's happiness, and the only tragic thing is that it must come before the Sixteenth Angel takes that all away. Check out my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com for commentary on this chapter, and I hope you look forward to the next installment.


	6. After Arael

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**After Arael**

_Chapter Six_

It used to be the lights from outside shined through my window and painted the room in a faint orange glow. Thanks to the streetlamps, the bulldozer outside and the stairwell railings cast thick, dark shadows against the interior wall. I dislike the light. I close the curtains every night, and now, but for the residual reflections at the floor, I sleep in the black. Even with my eyes open, it feels like becoming nothing, the nothingness I've sought for so long, but that night, my room wasn't altogether dark. The curtains hadn't failed me—they rippled and wavered in the faint white light, blocking the window.

The source was a person who stood in my apartment. She glowed, but her body was translucent and ephemeral. She held a notebook, my notebook, between her hands, and calmly turned the pages one by one.

"What are you doing?" I asked her. "Why are you here?"

"Because I don't remember," she said.

"Remember what?"

She closed the notebook and straightened the red bow at the neck of her uniform.

"Being you," she said.

I rose from my bed and flipped on the light, but as the darkness was erased, her form and notebook vanished, too. She was me; she looked like me. Not like the _me_ inside the Eva, which is small and young and twisted. I looked through my schoolbag and found my notebook there, open to the page I left it at. All this I can't explain, and when I woke again the next morning, to sunlight creeping under my curtains, I wondered if it had ever been real at all.

"Rei," said the Commander. "Are you listening?"

That's right; the Commander's office is always bathed in light, like an eternal dawn.

I do not know how the Commander and vice commander can work there.

It was ten o'clock in the Commander's office. The Commander sat back, relaxed, thoughtful. The vice commander thumbed through a stack of files. There were four of us present that day—the two commanders, myself, and Doctor Akagi—to discuss and assess the Angel attack.

"The pilot of Unit-02 took an aggressive position instead of her assignment," said the Commander. "She came under attack, did she not, doctor?"

"A psychic attack," said the doctor, standing to my left, "of profound psychological impact and trauma. We still don't know the full extent of the damage done to Asuka's mind or how it will affect her ability to pilot."

"And Rei, in defense of Unit-02, fired on the Fifteenth Angel," said the Commander. "But the shots were ineffective."

"That is so," I said.

"We exercised all due force, did we not, Fuyutsuki?"

"I dare say there was nothing else to try," said the vice commander. "Had the Chinese or Russians been on board with the undersea umbilical, perhaps we could've borrowed some power from them." He shook his head. "A pity to be so mired in nineteenth- and twentieth-century grudges, or else we would still have a Spear to use."

So it was. When the Angel attacked Unit-02 and penetrated the pilot's mind, the Commander had been left with no other choice. He sent me into Terminal Dogma to retrieve the last great weapon: the Spear of Longinus, an artifact whose power rivals that of Eva or Angels. The Spear was brought from Antarctica, and long had we kept it safe, impaling the white giant Adam in the lowest levels of the compound, but that day, the Commander had given the order to extract it, and I was sent down to do the deed. I waded in the ocean of LCL that bled from her. I pulled out the red, two-pronged spear and rode back to the surface. I hurled it skyward to meet the Angel, and when it struck the enemy's AT field, it pushed through.

The Spear is gone now. I'm told there are people unhappy about that.

"It is imperative that we all understand what happened and be coordinated with this version of events," said the Commander. "The old men in the Committee may call on any of us—or even all of us—looking for a scapegoat or someone to blame."

"What's the issue?" asked Doctor Akagi. "All we've done is recall what transpired. These are facts."

"Facts aren't what interest them," said the Commander. "Reasons and motivations are. We were tasked with destroying Angels, and it is only after that can the Committee move its plan forward. If they should ask any of you before them, I want to ensure we all say the same thing—that we moved to protect a pilot and had no other acceptable recourse, nothing more."

"Commander Ikari," I said.

"What is it?"

"If the Committee takes me, what do I tell them about Unit-01?"

"What of it?" asked the vice commander. "The Committee are the ones who wished it frozen."

"But Commander Ikari has the authority to abrogate the freeze," I said. "Does he not?"

"Without a doubt," said the Commander, leaning forward.

"Then the Committee would ask why we didn't consider using Unit-01. I only wish to know what to tell them."

"It would've made no difference," said the Commander. "Put Unit-01 at the gunner's position, the results would've been the same. Is that not so, Doctor Akagi?"

"One can't change the physics of it," she said. "Broadening of the beam, atmospheric losses—"

"But Unit-01 can use its AT field offensively and at considerable range," I said. "It did so with the Fourteenth."

"Those were unusual circumstances," said the vice commander.

"Nevertheless—"

"It is not relevant," said the Commander, standing. "Unit-01 would not have been used. Unleashing an Evangelion with unlimited power would not be prudent while other avenues existed, regardless of its supposed capabilities. You will tell the Committee, should they ask it, that Unit-01 was not considered for use."

"I will tell the Committee that Commander Ikari forbade Unit-01's use."

The Commander scowled. Doctor Akagi and Vice Commander Fuyutsuki exchanged a glance.

"That was not my instruction," said the Commander.

"It wasn't?"

The Commander stared, his gaze chilling and frigid. His jaw clenched.

"Rei," said the vice commander, "perhaps you can be excused for the time-being. If the need arises, we will continue later."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes!" barked the Commander. "You will do as you are told. Go now."

I did not understand. Was that not what I'd been doing? The Commander had sought my assessment of the facts, and I'd provided it. The Commander wished to hear my version of events, and I gave it. I didn't contradict him. I didn't disobey him.

Did I?

As I walked to the elevator, the Commander's meeting resumed. "Fuyutsuki," he said, "get me the Angel dossier."

"For what purpose?"

"Tell us again about the next Angel," said the Commander. "The Sixteenth."

The elevator doors opened. I stepped inside, and the vice commander opened a manila folder and read from the opening lines.

" 'The Angel Armisael, the Sixteenth Angel, is foretold in the Dead Sea Scrolls as the last of Adam's children and the penultimate messenger of the Covenant. If Arael could be called the Invader of the Mind, Armisael would be Invader of the Body and Soul. It will integrate and consume, so the Scrolls say, though how and in what way, even we cannot know…' "

The doors closed.

Two Angels left. There were only two Angels left, two Angels between me and the fulfillment of my life, my reason for being. Soon, I wouldn't be needed anymore. I wouldn't have to live anymore. I closed my eyes in that elevator and listened to the levels of Nerv pass by. I used to think I knew how it would feel—that like when I sleep, the world would just vanish, and I wouldn't even know that everything had gone, but now, my nights are filled with images and sound, like the ghost of myself who came that morning or…something else. I've seen Unit-00 in my dreams. It grasped the red Spear and pulled it from my torso as I hung, crucified, with nails driven through my hands. It shouldn't be possible—for me to look upon myself in Unit-00 that way—but that is what crowds my mind and makes it difficult to sleep.

What would it be like, then, to neither feel nor be? As much as I've wished for it, I realize there must be some paradox. When people achieve their desires, they feel happiness and joy. They're pleased. For what I want, I cannot reap the reward of satisfaction. I will only escape.

I thought that would suffice, so long as, between time and the time the last Angel falls, I'd had the chance to finish the other things I wanted to do.

The battle had been stressful on us, the three pilots. With only one Spear to use, I knew I had to be perfect with my throw, that even a slight change in angle or extra speed would hurl the Spear into space uselessly. That I did not want to happen, not with Sōryū screaming and crying from her Eva—this time, not without reason. I do not know what the Angel did to her; perhaps I don't really wish to know, but it paralyzed her. It panicked Ikari-kun, who begged his father to let him go to her aid. The Commander refused, of course, and only after the Spear destroyed the Angel could Sōryū be saved—or rather, extracted from the entry plug with the help of tons of machinery and dozens of men.

I'd scarcely seen her since. Not something I would ordinarily concern myself with, but Ikari-kun had hardly seen her, either. She'd left the major's apartment, striking out on her own, and though Ikari-kun knew not where she'd gone, I realized it as we left school. The class representative is too meticulous with her duties to keep a stack of printouts to herself and fail to give them to the assigned student. That's why, after the meeting with the Commander, I left the Geofront and rode the train north to the class representative's home.

It was a white house of two stories, with a small set of windows in the attic. Trees, tall and green, shaded both sides of the street approaching it, and the streetlights had unusual, tetrahedral shapes at their tops, as if to shine most of their white light to the sky.

The outer doors were glass with brown, stained trim. I knocked at one.

"Yes?" said a voice through a speaker, an intercom rusty and frayed at the right of the doorknob. "Who's there?"

The voice was unfamiliar to me. I said nothing.

A woman, older than I but still short of adulthood, peered around the corner, removing a pair of gardening gloves from her hands. She pulled her long, dark hair into a ponytail, bound it with an elastic band, and slid open the door. "I know that uniform anywhere," she said. "You must be one of Hikari's friends."

In a loose manner of speaking that was so. I nodded.

"Hikari!" said the girl, calling over her shoulder.

"What is it, Sister?" the class representative called back.

"Someone else to see you."

" 'Someone else'?"

"From your school?"

I heard a door within the home slid open. Footsteps approached.

"I don't mean to be rude," said the girl, "but we do already have a guest with us. Will you be staying long?"

I shook my head.

"Then please, take some slippers," she said.

Slippers?

"You don't want to scuff the floor, do you?"

Something I would have to consider for my apartment, I supposed—if I had the money to afford slippers for guests, anyway.

Or if I had guests at all.

"Ayanami-san?" The class representative peered around the hallway corner. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, she isn't part of your slumber party?" said the sister.

The class representative laughed sheepishly. It was unusual, seeing her in that place. Her attire was casual—pink pajamas with strips of yellow fabric at the ends of her sleeves, her pant legs.

"Is there something I can do for you?" she asked me. "I'm afraid we do have company, so—"

"I'm aware," I said.

She flinched. "You are? Is it…about her?"

I nodded.

The class representative's sister touched her younger sibling on the shoulder, passing by. "I'll tell our guest you'll be a minute?" she said.

"Yes," said the middle sister. "Ayanami-san and I will be in the kitchen."

It was a bright place, with pale yellow walls and white tiling. A steel pot and four plates soaked in the sink, the water still and polluted with grains of rice. "Oh, I'm sorry!" said the class representative, running the faucet. "I'll get this cleaned up right away."

"I do not mind," I said.

But she squirted blue soap onto a rag and scrubbed at the dishes anyway. There was a small, Western-style table in the corner, wooden and circular. I sat in one of the chairs. A group of drawing crayons rolled across the table. Their tips were dull; they'd been rubbed away. Their oils and pigments stuck to the surface of a sheet of paper, a rudimentary drawing. It was a house—this house, I took it—with three stick figures standing outside. The artist distorted their proportions, for had they been real and stood on the kitchen floor, their heads would've broken through the ceiling, but I suspect attention to detail was last on this young artist's mind. After all, she depicted the three stick people holding hands—but gave them neither fingers nor wrists to actually hold.

"Oh!" said the class representative, leaning over me. "My little sister Nozomi drew that. Do you like it?"

I studied the picture. "Who are these people?" I asked.

"It's us," she said. "Our family."

"How can you be sure?"

She scoffed. "Well, who else would they be? Look—the tall one is my big sister, Kodoma. You just met her, see? The middle one is me; the little one is Nozomi."

I did not know how that could be so apparent to the class representative. The three figures in the picture could've been anyone. There was insufficient detail.

But then, around the kitchen were photos of all shapes and sizes. On the windowsill, the three Horaki sisters posed before a mountain lake—the elder on the left, the middle sister on the right, and the youngest between them, pulling down her eyelid in displeasure. The sky was blue, and a sailboat drifted past in the background. There were many photos like that one, sometimes featuring all of the sisters, other times only two. They were never solitary, however.

They were never alone.

"Sorry about shuffling you in here like this," said the class representative, wiping away the last drop of dishwater. "How did you know she was here? The printouts?"

I nodded.

"It seems like very little escapes your attention," she said, "even if you do stare out the window quite a bit. Well then? I think Asuka would be surprised, seeing you here."

" 'Surprised' is not the word I'd use."

The class representative stifled a laugh. "That's true; it's for that I thought it better take you out of sight. I take it you're not really here to see her, either. I know she's been a bit less than kind."

"You're polite."

"She's my friend. She's Ikari-kun's friend, too, as much as she may deny it. She's very angry right now, but Ikari-kun, you, the world—they're all just convenient targets. I think the person Asuka's angriest with, the person she hates the most, is herself."

I'd often found that person's anger and expressiveness confusing, and what the class representative said about her puzzled me all the more. "Why should she hate herself?" I asked.

The class representative sighed. "I wish I could say. My little sister went through a phase, a year or two ago, where all she wanted to do was do things herself. She shunned me and my sister, shut herself in her room, and insisted she could be a grown-up and didn't need our help. It lasted for a week, maybe two, until she realized that being an adult means you have to help with dinner, do your own laundry—things she didn't want to do before. That's the thing, though: Nozomi was seven at the time. Asuka…" She shook her head. "Do you know anything about her? What her childhood was like?"

I scarcely knew what childhood should be like.

"Well, either way," she said, sitting across from me, "you're not here to reach out to Asuka, are you?"

I tilted my head.

"This is ultimately about Ikari-kun," she said, smiling. "Am I right?"

"I don't understand."

"Come now, I saw it when you visited him in the hospital that time. Did he tell you she'd gone?"

"No." I sat upright. "Not at first."

"What happened, then?"

"He entered the classroom alone at fifteen minutes past eight."

"Before I arrived," said the class representative.

"Yes. Ikari-kun did not say anything."

"So you asked him."

"I did. He was hesitant at first, but then he said that she'd left Major Katsuragi's apartment. She'd written a note, but didn't say when she'd return."

"How did Ikari-kun feel about that?"

"He did not speak his feelings on the matter."

"But they were plain to you?" she said. "His feelings?"

"I could see the disquiet on his face."

"Ayanami-san," said the class representative, "why are you here?"

"To assess the state of things." I looked to the hallway. "Do you think she will stay long?"

"I don't really know. You think she should go?"

"She is a burden, whether here or there, but Major Katsuragi is responsible for her, and Ikari-kun…"

"What about Ikari-kun?"

I blinked. "He will continue to cook her lunches without complaint."

"May I be candid with you?" asked the class representative.

"Yes."

"I think you're talking about the best thing for Ikari-kun," she said. "Not for Asuka. Going back home won't do anything for her. There are no expectations for her here, but once she thinks about being a pilot again, she'll put a tremendous weight on herself."

"She can't choose to stop as she pleases," I said.

"I know that. And I can't say I know what will help her, but I'm not doing this just out of classroom duty. Asuka's my friend. In the state of mind she's in now, I have to look out for her interests."

I nodded, though I didn't agree with her. If the class representative wouldn't send Sōryū home—at least, not then—what else could be done? I didn't think I could persuade the class representative otherwise. It's difficult to argue, I've found, when the opponent knows your position better than you do. I _had_ come to that house thinking only of Ikari-kun and how Sōryū's absence had affected him. I didn't try to understand it—I don't think I can—but were I in the class representative's position, I should imagine I'd do the same.

"Hikari?"

The voice was faint and soft. It came from down the hall, but the class representative and I recognized it.

"There!" whispered the class representative, pointing beyond the table. "Go through the curtain into the hall. You can come around in a second."

I pushed through the blue cloth and took a step to my left. I put my back to the wall and stood still.

"Who was it who came?" asked Sōryū, her footsteps heavy, her bare feet smacking on the tile.

"Just someone from student council," said the class representative. "With so many people leaving, they were thinking about merging some of the classes together."

"They came all the way here on a weekend to say that?"

"It seemed like they wanted to start with it Monday if they could. I told her it was a bad idea, though. The integrity of the class is important."

"If you say so."

There was a pause. "Asuka," said the class representative, "how long do you think you'll stay?"

"You want me to go?"

"Not at all! I think you should stay as long as you want."

"Within reason, you mean."

"As long as you want. But still, I do have a question. You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."

"Go on."

"Why is it you don't want to be around Katsuragi-san and Ikari-kun?"

" 'Why?' " She huffed. "Why should I have to be around them? They're not my family. Those two—they think they know so much."

"About what?"

"How to fight, how the world works, how to live and be a person." She drummed her fingers on a hard surface. "They think I'm nothing."

"That's not true!"

"Sure it is. And why shouldn't they think that? I can't win in an Eva. I can't do as well as a wide-eyed, scared little boy, and because of that…"

"Asuka?"

"Yeah?"

"You want me to make you some lunch?"

"That might be nice."

A chair scratched against the tile. "All right, let me see what Sister wanted. Honestly, sometimes she's pickier than Nozomi. It'll be just a moment, okay?"

Sōryū said nothing, and the class representative came through the blue curtain, a finger to her lips. She led me by the hand to the glass outer doors. I removed the slippers, leaving them side-by-side, and wore my own shoes again.

"For my part, Ayanami-san, I don't know how much you can really do for Asuka, but for Ikari-kun, I think you should go to him."

I blinked.

"Don't be like me," she said. "I moved too slowly with Suzuhara."

"Suzuhara-kun is still alive."

She smiled. "And I'm thankful for that, every day, but I almost waited too long. Don't make that mistake. I can say that, from my experience, regardless of Asuka's feelings. You should go to Ikari-kun and say what you feel."

"What is that?" I said.

She giggled. An unsettling sound when one doesn't understand the reason. "You'll know," she said. "I think we all know what that's like, even if we can't put it to words."

I did not take the class representative's sentiments to heart—at least, not then. What struck me more was that, as I left, Sōryū called to her gently, quietly. I think, truly, it had been the first time I heard her speak without haughtiness or disgust in her voice, but if the class representative had been right, there was still hatred inside her. There was still a loathing—not just for others but for herself, too.

The pilot of Unit-02 had been broken.

I left the class representative's home. I walked. I rode the trains, but I went nowhere. It was early to return to my apartment, yet I was at a loss for anywhere specific to go. Above ground, there were people. A woman chatted incessantly on her mobile phone, ignoring the stares of the passengers around her. A man sat at an outdoor table of black wrought iron, checking his watch, looking down both ends of the street, yet no one came. A boy and girl strolled down the sidewalk, and when a pair of patrol cars zipped past, sirens blaring, the girl pulled her friend from the distracted crowd of fellow pedestrians. They turned the corner of an alley, and she pressed her lips to his for but a moment. Such an act wasn't alien to me. I'd seen it before. Some chose to hide it, as those two did, sheltering themselves between brick and cedar. Others flaunted it, and their tongues contorted in ways I did not know possible. I couldn't think it a sanitary thing, but people ignore their butter judgment often. They were driven to do it. Compelled by instinct and feeling. I wasn't sure I understood the greater purpose; it was but a prelude to an act of real consequence.

Wasn't it?

The streets and shops of the city were full of them, full of people. I was among them but not one of them. I was different. That's why I left.

It's difficult to get out of the city, even more difficult to go without permission. The peaks that surround Tōkyō-3 I've only ever seen from afar. As paradoxical as it may sound, for the times I wish to visit nature, I go to the Geofront. I think it's an issue of ventilation, of airflow. No matter how man has drilled and bored into the structure, they could never hope to industrialize it, to use smoke-churning industry in this place for long. For what little need of petroleum and methane they did have, humans populated the Geofront with grass and trees. They reflect sunlight into it. They grow beans, herbs, peppers.

Melons.

I walked around the melon patch, the field of dark, crumbly dirt. Sprinklers emerged from the soil, showering the melons in overlapping arcs of fine mist. Such a simple mechanism to the eye, yet I recalled it'd taken weeks to restore. The damage the Fourteenth had inflicted could not be brushed away with the wave of a hand, and we, in fulfilling our purpose, our duty, had caused some damage of our own. There was a crater—one the N2 mine had left behind. The crater had flooded. It became part of the lake. That which wasn't repaired had grown into the new way of things.

A metal bucket fell, sinking slightly into the soil. Major Katsuragi, in her usual skirted uniform, paced about the edge of the patch. "You might want to move," she said.

I lifted my chin.

"That sprinkler," she said, pointing to a rotating metal head near my feet. "It's not calibrated well. I'd move back before it gets you."

I stepped aside, and sure enough, the field of water turned. It enveloped my former position, coming to a halt just centimeters from my shoe.

"See what I mean?" said the major. "Shoddy work all around this is." She sighed, picking up her pail. In it, various objects and tools rattled about—thick, leathery gloves with steel buttons on each side; a two-pronged weeding tool; a spray bottle of a clear, unlabeled liquid. "What is it?" she asked. "Have you come to tend to Kaji-kun's melons, too?"

"Inspector Kaji asked you to do so?"

"Hah! One would hope so. Oh no, I mean, I came here to dig through the dirt and spray herbicide for fun. To answer your question, yes, he asked me, and someone has to do it."

"He's gone?"

She flinched. She stood upright, rigid. "Well, you could say that. Why? Were you looking for him?"

" 'Looking'?"

"He can be very charming," she said. "It wouldn't be unusual if you'd taken to him, that's all."

"I'm a second-year middle-school student."

The major smiled to herself. "I didn't say he would take to you in return. That would be illegal, unnatural. A fantasy to some men who keep pictures of girls in sailor uniforms on multiple hard drives for redundancy." She looked me up and down. "You'd be a godsend to them, you know. You wear your uniform even on a Sunday."

"As do you, Major Katsuragi."

She pulled on the lapel of her red jacket, laughing to herself. "So I do. Even so, you didn't answer my question."

Question?

"Were you looking for him—for Kaji-kun?"

I studied the melon patch for a moment. "Yes," I said. "He gave me a piece of advice I found…useful."

"He's good with that, isn't he," she said. "When I knew him in university, he fancied himself a street-wise philosopher, with all these sayings of thinkers and scientists. "There was a time he and I spent altogether too much time with each other. A whole week we didn't see anyone else, and only when we came out did I realize what people were saying, how they looked on that. I told him about it, and he said, 'What do you care what other people think? ' In English, no less. Mangled, terrible English. You know where the saying comes from?"

"A scientist," I said.

"A scientist's wife, if I recall, but the point stands. The man is full of quotes like those. I think he uses them to impress women, to make himself sound smarter than he really is."

"That does not make him intelligent in and of itself?" I asked.

"How could he be—using someone else's words?"

"He still has to choose the right ones to say."

The major gaped, wavering on her feet. She glanced at the sprinklers. "I guess you're right about that. Even if he came up with none of it himself, he always seemed to know the right line for the occasion." Her brow creased. She watched me from the corner of her eye. "Well now, Kaji-kun isn't here, and who knows how long these sprinklers will be going, or if I'll get anything done before the melons dry. Maybe we should wait for a while?"

"Here?" I said.

"Hm, that would be a bit boring, wouldn't it. Back at my place, perhaps?"

"Your 'place'?"

"What, you don't have a synch test today, do you? Asuka's gone, so you won't have to deal with her. It'll just be you, me, and Shinji-kun. How's that for camaraderie, hm?"

The melon patch was wet. The Inspector, whom I thought might have more sound words of guidance, was gone. At the time, I followed the major. I didn't think doing so would result in any harm.

"Sorry for the mess!"

It was a twenty-minute journey up the escalators and over land to the major's complex. When we entered the apartment, she slid a cardboard box from the doorway with the instep of her shoe. "Though I've heard that doesn't bother you so much, yes?"

What mess?

Well, perhaps I shouldn't say that. I noticed the major was somewhat…disorganized. Empty tins of canned coffee and better adorned the tables and the top of the refrigerator. Shirts and underwear covered the floor. I did not mind, as the major said, but if I should leave my shoes at the door, it would've been nice to have a place or two to put my feet.

"Shinji-kun, you have a guest!" said the major, tossing her beret aside. "Shinji-kun?" She blinked. "Hm, maybe he went out?" She opened the refrigerator, tilting her head. "Must be a grocery run."

I began to think going there was a poor idea, even though I agreed with the major's plan. "Regardless of when he comes back, it'll be good for Shinji-kun, I think," she said, taking a seat. "To take his mind off Asuka leaving. Besides…" Her gaze turned sly and wicked. "I've heard you two went out on a date?"

"It was not a date," I said.

"No? Too bad for Shinji-kun, then. I started thinking, after you came over here to show up Asuka on that coordination exercise, that you and Shinji-kun were always a bit more together on things."

"It was you, Major Katsuragi, who asked me to come here for that."

"Minor details." She made a face, looking down, and laughed nervously. "I hope you can excuse me for being a bad host, but…"

" 'But'?"

"I just need to run to the toilet," she said. "Please, make yourself at home. Maybe you can scout out Asuka's room—if she doesn't want to stay, it'd be good for Shinji-kun to have a roommate his own age. Don't you think?"

I said nothing.

"Careful, Rei—if you hold all that heat inside your head, it might just blow," she said, laughing. "I'll be right back!"

The major stepped back, closing a sliding door between me and the facilities she would use. I was grateful, at the time. Without a doubt, the major could be irritating for her directness. I wasn't sure if she believed all that she'd said or merely meant to elicit a response.

Now I'm sure it was the latter.

I explored the major's apartment for a time. As she'd said, it was not my first visit. I passed by Sōryū's room, and contrary to the major's suggestion, I did not go inside. In rough, jagged, poor handwriting, the pilot of Unit-02 had written a note on a whiteboard stuck to her door, warning that no one should enter on penalty of death. I obeyed that request, if only to ensure that she wouldn't visit me at night to bring about my demise. I can think of many more pleasant ways to end my life.

Opposite this room was Ikari-kun's. The floor there was devoid of strewn clothing or spots of spilled beer. The bed was neat, the sheets folded. It was orderly, one could say. Clean, even. I thought cleanliness must be important to Ikari-kun, but I wasn't sure why.

RING-RING-RING! The major's telephone came to life. I shut the door to Ikari-kun's room and returned to the kitchen. The phone was on an end table, underneath a calendar.

RING-RING-RING!

Strictly speaking, I shouldn't have been there, but the major, it appeared, was not yet done relieving herself. I let the phone ring and ring until the answering machine picked up.

BEEP.

"Ah, hello?" said a voice. "Misato-san? It's me."

Ikari-kun. I thought he must've been on his way home.

"I just wanted to call and see when I should come back. I can stay at Kensuke's place if you want me to, if it'll take all night."

The major told Ikari-kun to leave?

"Anyway, I'll call back at seven, if it's okay to come back by then. If not—"

I picked up the handset.

"Ah, Misato-san? Is that you?"

"No."

"Eh? Who is that? Ayanami? What are you doing at Misato-san's apartment?"

"I was invited."

"But that can't be—there are supposed to be people there!"

"People?"

A pause. "Who else is around?"

"Major Katsuragi and I. No one else."

"Strange. I don't understand—Misato-san said there would be security people sweeping the apartment for listening devices. She didn't want me to be there."

"For how long?" I asked.

"All day."

Security agents who should've been there but weren't. I, who shouldn't have been there, but was.

"Honestly, I don't understand. First Misato-san shut herself in her room and now this? I don't get it at all."

"Ikari-kun."

"Huh? What?"

"Call back in five minutes."

"Eh? Ayanami, wait—"

I hung up.

I'd thought before that the major, at times, acted like two different people—one of them lazy, messy, and childish, the other driven and efficient. Which one, I wondered, was I dealing with then?

I left the kitchen. There was one other room in that apartment I hadn't considered. "Working," read the sign on that door. "Sorry, but do not disturb."

I went inside.

The major's room was dark. A picture of a car, in black and white, hung over her desk. Plastic containers and boxes with disposable chopsticks overflowed the trash. There were books and magazines. There were cans of coffee and a box of tissues at the legs of the desk.

Crink. I stepped on a piece of paper, and wrinkling it from the center. I smoothed the sheet against the wall and studied it, but black bands concealed most of the characters. All that remained—all that was relevant—was the title in large, block-like type:

"Adam," it read. She was reading about the Angels, the giant beneath the pyramid. Many other folders she'd scattered about her bedroom—about the three Eva, about Ikari-kun and Sōryū. She investigated the Commander. Even her friend, Doctor Akagi, was not beyond her gaze.

I flipped on the desk light. I found another folder there, closed, with only a title on the edge. "Human Instrumentality Project." The documents inside were blacked out, again, but the letterhead bore a symbol: a snake curled around an apple in the middle of a triangular mask—a mask with seven eyes, three on a left, four on the right, in two distinct columns. From the mask of the giant, they took their emblem.

I closed the folder, sliding the corner under the base of the major's phone. A red light blinked beside the handset. The major had a message. I pressed _play_.

"Katsuragi," said the voice on the machine, "it's me."

Inspector Kaji.

"I've probably put you through a lot of trouble by the time you hear this. I'm sorry. Tell Ritchan I'm sorry, too. And, since I've bothered you so much anyway, there's this flower I've been growing—I'd be grateful if you watered it for me. Shinji knows where it is. Katsuragi, the truth is with you. Go forth with no doubts. If I ever see you again, I'll say the words I should've said eight years ago. Bye."

The major's quest, and she'd involved the inspector in it, too. So it was. I would play no part. Ikari-kun would call soon, and I judged it better to leave the major's room before answering it. Better that she not know I'd been there. Hopefully, she'd still be washing up. The major could become unpredictable if she learned I'd been there. I fingered the desk light's switch and faced the door, ready to leave.

I realized, then, that I was wrong. The major had already become unpredictable.

On both panels of her thin, wooden door, she'd scribbled in wide, black inkstrokes the thoughts that polluted her mind. There were words and phrases, images, caricatures of people, and various arrows and lines to connect them. From Doctor Katsuragi's expedition to Adam to the Sixth Angel, she inferred some connection, accentuating it with repeated, overdrawn circles. At the top, across both panels, she'd drawn a timeline, noting the Second Impact, Ikari Yui and Akagi Naoko's deaths, the Commander's installment and the creation of Nerv. _Contact experiment_—that phrase she put in large characters. Ikari-kun's mother had died in one. Sōryū's mother had lost her mind after one, and the major—she inferred that for a pilot to be effective, they should have a connection to someone who'd touched an Eva. It stood to reason, in her mind, that I should have such a connection to, but she couldn't find it.

She couldn't find anything about me. That's why _contact experiments_ led to me. That's why Naoko Akagi's death and dummy plugs led to me. That's why the Committee, the Human Instrumentality Project—they both led to me.

In the center, straddling the line between the two halves of the door, she scribbled my name, underlined it three times. "Who is she?" the major asked herself. "Where did she come from? Why does she look that way?"

RING-RING-RING!

I jerked; I banged into the desk, and a folder scattered its files on the floor. A photograph fluttered out, landing atop the pile. It was a face.

My face.

RING-RING-RING!

I picked up.

"Ayanami? Are you there? What's going on? Tell me something."

"Ikari-kun, I—" I looked to the door, with my name in black, at the center of every arrow pointing from outside. I glanced at the photograph. It was the major's apartment. She had control there, and I—I was this foreign thing, an animal, bottled up with nowhere to go.

"Ayanami?"

"I need help," I said. "If you do not hear from me again soon, come to the major's apartment."

"What are you saying?"

"Major Katsuragi has deceived us. She is obsessed with knowing things she should not know. She's brought me here and sent you away to advance that goal."

"I don't believe it; Misato-san wouldn't—"

"Ikari-kun, please." I looked to the door, the lines and scribbles that merged together in the dark as a jumble, an incoherent web.

"Ayanami?"

"Please come quickly," I said, whispering. "I'm afraid."

Click.

I pressed the receiver closer to my ear. "Ikari-kun?"

"This line has been reported for illegal use," said a calm woman's voice. "Please contact the security ministry if you wish to contest the claim. Agents will investigate the claim and issue a ruling within forty-eight hours. Thank you for your cooperation."

The sliding door inched open, and light from the hallway eradicated the dark, but for the shadow of the major on the floor. She held a mobile phone to her ear, but her stare was fixed on me.

"So the line is cut?" she said. "Good. Leave it that way until I call back. No, I don't need backup. This is something I can handle myself. Thanks." She pressed a button, ending the call, and left the phone on a shelf beside the door. "I really did have to use the toilet," she said, "if that's what you're wondering."

I put the desk phone back on its base. It wouldn't help me anymore.

"What, nothing to say?" The major huffed. "I should think you'd be a bit surprised, at least."

"Allow me to leave, Major Katsuragi, and Commander Ikari need not hear of this."

"Hah! Don't joke with me. That promise is thin, and I don't care what Commander Ikari or anyone else hears. You see the puzzle here, don't you?" She pointed to the drawings on the door, half-obscured by her presence. "Fill in the blanks for me, Rei. That's all I'm asking you to do." The major reached into her pocket, the one next to her sidearm.

I shivered.

"Here," she said, offering a black, felt-tip pen. "Show me the connection."

I took the pen, undid the cap. I inhaled, and its harsh, chemical odor filled my nose. I wouldn't have to say anything; all I'd have to do was draw. Draw Major Katsuragi's connection and imbue that room, which was awash with facts but lacking in coherence, with some measure of unification, a harmony to guide the separate instruments of truth to a singular song.

"Tell me about Commander Ikari," said the major, pointing out a line connecting my name to his. "He must've found you somewhere. Maybe he rescued you from an orphanage? Maybe your mother or father worked at the old base before, at Gehirn? Did they touch Unit-00? Is that why you're all alone here, why you have no family, why Commander Ikari keeps you on such a short leash?"

Commander Ikari. She wanted to know about what—the bond between him and me? The connection that can't be refused or denied? The Commander was always watching. His agents could've been out there, spying on us, listening as in the major's ruse to see if I'd betray him. I wouldn't. I couldn't. The Commander made me. Without him, I wouldn't be. How could the major ask me to cross him? Had she no inkling of what he would do?

No, of course she didn't. She was ignorant. She wanted to know, but in doing so, she would make me seek hardship. I'm like Ikari-kun in that respect. I have no wish to feel pain. I suspect no one does. How much pain people tolerate depends on how much they yearn for something, on the desire that justifies their pain, but the only thing I thought I wanted then was to feel nothing. The major—she was in the way.

She was in _my_ way.

I touched a hand to her waist. I felt the heat of her body through her clothes. I pushed.

I shoved her aside, into the doorframe, and ran.

"Wait, Rei!"

I dashed for the kitchen. There was a way into this apartment; there was a way out. It stood to reason, after all—that door couldn't possibly lock from the inside, too.

"Come now, you think I spent that long at the toilet? Give me some credit, will you? You won't be getting out that way."

I turned the corner, and the edge of the kitchen table collided with my gut. It blocked the main door and buckled downward in the middle, laden down with chairs, cans of beer, a potted plant—whatever the major could heap atop it.

"Well?" said the major, folding her arms. "Are you ready to talk civilly?"

I dashed toward her, through her. We collided and rolled into the empty kitchen. She pulled at my skirt, and the fabric ripped. The triangle of green cloth she clutched and threw aside. "Come back here!" she said, struggling to her feet. "There's nowhere to go, Rei!"

Through the kitchen doors I barged into the living room. The major's room on the left, Ikari-kun and Sōryū's rooms on the right—all paths with no exit, no possibility for escape.

Except for what lay ahead: daylight through glass doors; a white, painted balcony.

"No, don't!" said the major. "What are you doing?"

I slid the glass panel aside, stepped through, and slammed it back where it came from. The major, charging, leveled her shoulder on the pane and cracked it on impact, leaving a radial pattern of fissures behind.

"Goodbye, Major Katsuragi," I said. I went to the railing, put my right foot atop it—

"No!" The major yanked the door open. She grabbed my arm; she pulled me back. I slipped, and my head bounced on the floor. It was supposed to be a sunny day, yet I only saw only a thick gray haze.

THWACK!

And the black butt of the major's pistol as it whipped across my temple.

"You can't do that, Rei," said the major. "I'm not done with you yet."

It hurt. My pulse echoed through my skull like a great, tribal drum. Why couldn't it be quiet?

By my ankles, the major dragged me over the threshold, into the living room. I grasped at strands of carpet, trying to slow her, but she felt the tug of tension between us. She responded.

SLAP!

"Stop that!" she said. "Be a good girl; follow my orders."

My nails scratched the kitchen floor. With one hand, the major kept her hold on me; with the other, she searched the cabinets and cupboards until she found a roll of wide gray tape. I thought she'd tie me up.

I wish she had.

"Your file tells me your communication skills are challenged." She opened the refrigerator. She ripped out the metal shelves, tossing them and their contents about with no regard or concern for where they went. Beer cans rolled along the floor. One buckled under pressure, and a brown foam sprayed into the near corner. "I think we both know that to be true."

"You can stop this now, major.

"Shut up!" She let my ankle go. "Stand!"

I stood beside the refrigerator door, the major before me, cold air behind.

"You have no idea what I can or can't stop," she said. "I want to know—yes, even if it kills me. I want to know what it is we're fighting for, what it is people are dying for. Are you willing to stay silent for that? Are you so afraid of Commander Ikari? Are you so unafraid of death?"

"Yes."

The major glowered, a beastly expression of anger. I thought she might strike me. I stiffened to take a blow to the face, the head.

Her foot caught me in the stomach instead. It knocked be backward; I stumbled into the empty refrigerator.

The major closed the door.

"When you're ready to talk," she said, "just bang on something. I might just hear you, but do it quickly, Rei, for no one is coming to save you. Not Commander Ikari. Not Shinji-kun. It's just you and me here, but if you're truly unafraid of death, that won't matter, will it?"

She took strips off the roll of gray tape. She sealed me inside, in the cold, with nowhere to go, and at first, I didn't care. The major had made her own fate. She'd doom herself in killing me, in delving into matters she shouldn't involve herself in. I welcomed the opportunity to sleep. I ignored my body's tremors, the shivers and contractions meant to keep me warm. It was dark in that place. There was a hum, the hum of the compressor keeping me cold, but for that it was quieter than silence, for eventually, I came to ignore that sound, too, even as it drowned out all else. It was everything I could ask for—a void of cold and darkness, the perfect oblivion, where there is no motion to disturb the peace of it, the emptiness of it. I would become nothing.

_And they'll remember you for nothing, too._

It was a voice—my voice? No, similar but not the same. The me inside the Eva—It spoke to me. It clung to my back, whispering in my ear.

_There's no solace for us, you know. When you disappear, they'll forget you. They'll forget you like they forgot me. That's the price of becoming nothing. If there are people you care for, they won't care about you in return. _He_ surely won't, and that boy—he'll keep on living, too. He'll have experiences you can't share in because you'll be replaced by another. You'll be forgotten because they won't even know you've gone. You know what'll happen then? _

It crept over my shoulder, grinning.

_You'll be just like me._

I jerked; I batted It away, and It disappeared in the black. I wasn't in the Eva! Could it touch me like that, creeping into my mind whenever It pleased? No, no, impossible. It couldn't do that. I wouldn't become like It. The Commander would bring me back because he needed me. Ikari-kun—he would know, wouldn't he? He wouldn't be fooled by something that looked like me but wasn't.

By something that looked like his mother but wasn't. No, It was too right. There were two things that had been called _Ayanami_, and I was the second. In the mind of the major, in the mind of Ikari-kun, I was the only one. If I died in that refrigerator, if I succumbed to the cold, perhaps the major would question it, wonder how I could've come back, but Ikari-kun, my classmates, everyone else would see the third and never know the difference, never know it was something else. Or perhaps they _would_ notice and dismiss the discrepancies. In doing so, they would forget who _I_ was. They would forget.

Forget.

Forget.

And I…I don't know if it was the cold that affected me, if hypothermia induced a vision that was irrational and deluded, that word I couldn't shake from my ears, and every time I heard it, I jerked. I spasmed. I kicked. I kicked at the door, and there was light! A blurry sliver of light! I kicked again and again, and the strips of tape sheared off! In the light, I fell. I fell to the tile. It was warm there, but I was cold. I shivered.

"So you do want to live." The major stood over me and pulled the slide of her sidearm, loading the chamber. "Then let this be your incentive; your life is in your own hands, and what you say can save you."

"I can tell you nothing."

I was cold, but it was the major who trembled. "Then I'll put a bullet in you, Rei. I'm not afraid to. If all I'm able to do is end it, end the madness and secrecy and death, then you're just a necessary casualty. It's not personal; it's just what has to be done. That's why I'll do it if you won't tell me, if you can't tell me what I want. I know you're the key to something, to Commander Ikari's plan, whatever that may be. What is it he's trying to do?"

From her look, I could tell: the major's hunger for knowledge was insatiable. I could say much about where I came from, how I was made, who I was built to look like, but these were mere facts and ideas. They were disconnected, unfocused. The major was looking for a coherent narrative, but I—

"Well?" The steel gun barrel bore down on me. "Speak already!"

I looked away. "I cannot."

"Wrong answer!"

"It is the _only_ answer," I said. "You're right, Major Katsuragi—I am the key to things. The Commander has told me this so many times I can't remember. He tells me I have a purpose. He tries to make it sound like he needs me, but I need him as much, if not more. Without him, I wouldn't be alive."

The major grimaced. "I know all about that."

"You don't," I said, "but that's not the point. I know how you feel—that you've been working toward a goal you don't know. I know because I'm the same."

"Impossible!" she said. "Stop that; don't lie to me!"

"We _are_ the same," I said, standing, though I was weak on my feet. "I have a purpose, but I know not what it is. When the time comes, I imagine Commander Ikari will take me and use me, then he'll end me, and I'll cease to be."

"Then you have no reason to keep it a secret!"

"But I don't know why. I've followed him; I've obeyed him. I thought once he might enjoy my presence, but I'm just a tool, and my obedience is blind. I don't know anything about he's planning, and I have only the vaguest idea of what he wants. Beyond that…"

"No…" The major shook her head, trembling. "I won't believe that; I won't accept that!"

"It's the truth."

BANG-BANG-BANG! Three shell casings clinked on the tile. I peered over my shoulder. The major had put three holes in her cabinets, splintering the wood.

"Don't lie to me, Rei!" said the major. "You know more than you're letting on—I know it!" She held the gun with both hands, lining up her shot with her right eye. "Those shots were warnings. This one won't be. You've already proven to me you want to live; you wouldn't have kicked your way free if you hadn't. Do what you have to do to survive now. Do what I need you to do, or there will be more meaningless bloodshed!"

The major was right; I'd expressed a desire to live, but that was a very different thing from being willing to speak. The Commander had controlled me. The Commander had managed every aspect of my life. He still does. And maybe, in the major's mind, that would give me reason to betray him, to divulge what can't be taken back, but for me, that was the life I was forced to live, one I couldn't escape even by the major's bullets. While the Commander needed me there, I would cope however I needed to. For a long time, all I thought I needed was the Commander's smile. Staring down the length of the major's gun barrel, I thought I saw it, too.

"Major Katsuragi, I will say no more. You may shoot when ready."

She glared. "So it is, then." She touched the tip of the gun to my forehead. I closed my eyes, and—

Thump-thump-thump. The major twitched. She looked to the entryway, where the table holding the door in place rattled. "Misato-san?" cried a voice outside. "Ayanami? Answer me, please! We heard gunshots out here!"

"Shinji-kun?" said the major. She looked about the kitchen, the living room, the cracked glass of the balcony door. "Oh gods, when he sees this…"

"Boy, stand aside!" came a harsh voice outside.

"But this is my home; I have to go in there!"

"Stand aside! Team Three, move in with me on my signal, use of lethal force is authorized…"

The major steeled herself. "Shinji-kun brought friends I see. That's your doing?"

I nodded.

"He doesn't like to see the people he cares about get hurt."

BANG! There was a commotion, movement. The voices outside grew louder. The soldiers outside, I guessed, had taken a battering ram to the door.

There was a pressure on my head; the major's gun was cold and unmoving.

"Major Katsuragi?" I said.

"Don't worry, Rei," she said, her gaze fixed on the entrance corridor. "This is the end."

A tear fell down her cheek.

"Not for you, though." With a grim look, the major ejected the clip from her pistol and pulled the slide to eject the unspent cartridge. She left both on the counter and sat on the floor, the brown puddle of beer beside her, her leggings stained and torn. "I guess this is for the best."

"I fail to see how that could be, major."

"It's like you said, if any of it was true, we're in the dark, both of us. Pathetic, isn't it? We're used like puppets, like little dolls for children to play with, and where you went along with it because you had nothing else, where I—I kept going on anger. Kill the Angels; nothing else mattered! And whatever I had to look past to make it happen, whoever had to _die_ to make it happen, it was good! It was just; it was fair!" Her arm went limp beside her. She choked on her own sobs. "Kaji-kun's gone because of that," she said, "and I wonder—did he stay with all this for so long to look out for me? If I'd been more careful…well, it doesn't matter now. It's over. If Commander Ikari should take me, if the Human Instrumentality Committee or whatever they call themselves should have me killed, I don't think I'd mind. I did my best by Kaji-kun. I guess there's only one thing I'd really regret."

BANG!

"What's that?"

"That I left such a mess for Shinji-kun to clean up." She laughed. "He really likes to clean, you know."

Yes, major. I know that well.

BANG! "Go, go, go!"

The soldiers swarmed in, bearing bulletproof vests, helmets, goggles, and polished rifles. They entered the kitchen and fanned out, with three men holding us at gunpoint while the others searched the premises.

"Major," said one with a gold stripe on his helmet, "what's going on here?"

"It's me you want," she said, refusing holding her arms over her head. "Go on."

"Excuse me?"

"I've committed a crime against a protected person," she told the officer. "You're here to take me in."

The soldiers looked at each other. As their comrades radioed back, signaling that the apartment was clear of other disturbances, the leader fingered a pair of handcuffs at his waist and, at last, decided to open them.

"Major Katsuragi," he said, "I place you—"

"Wait." I stepped forward. "The major is mistaken."

The major rose. "Rei, what are you doing?"

I looked to the entrance corridor. Someone had crept in after the soldiers; he was watching us, judging us, and I watched him in return.

"The major is grieving," I said. "She does not think clearly. I also think she's had too much alcohol."

"But your injuries!" said the soldier in the gold-striped helmet. "Your lips are blue!"

I kept my gaze on the boy in the corridor.

"I'm fine," I said.

In due time, the major and I crafted a story suitable for the soldiers to digest. As we were debriefed outside the major's apartment, paramedics wrapped me in a warming blanket and gave me something warm to drink. Something called _hot chocolate_. I'd never had it before.

Nor had Ikari-kun. He sat with me, in the back of the ambulance. I don't think he knew what to say.

"Rei." The major approached, in her stockings, and bowed at the waist. "I owe you an apology."

"You are free to go?" I asked.

"I'll be questioned, I imagine, but for now, I'm safe. Can I ask you something though?"

I nodded.

"Why did you do that?"

I sipped the hot chocolate. "Because we are the same."

"Ah. Well, I might not be so deserving of such kindness, but thank you. Really."

I nodded again.

"Actually," she said, "there is one more thing—"

"Hold on, Misato-san!" said Ikari-kun. "After what Ayanami's been through—"

"It's all right," I said. "The major may ask her question."

"You said you didn't know what _he_ was up to," said the major, "but what do you think it could be?"

I stiffened. "Ikari-kun."

"Yes?"

"Excuse us for a moment."

Reluctantly, Ikari-kun climbed out of the ambulance and strolled to the sidewalk, looking up toward the major's apartment. The major watched him for a moment, then stepped closer.

"He wants to see his wife again," I told the major.

"His wife? Shinji-kun's mother, then?"

"Indeed."

"Strange," said the major. "Shinji-kun doesn't have a picture of her, doesn't remember her. I don't even know what she looked like."

"You do," I said.

She blinked.

"You just don't know it yet."

Thankfully, the major's curiosity was sated, at least for a time, and when the paramedics told me my temperature was healthy again, I didn't find the major there. Ikari-kun was still outside, though, waiting for me on the sidewalk.

"I still can't believe it," he said. "That Misato-san would to this to you, that Kaji-san is gone. Are you really okay?"

I couldn't say. People were such puzzling creatures. Like Ikari-kun, I'd never seen Major Katsuragi behave as she had that afternoon, and her erratic plans could only be considered direct consequences of Inspector Kaji's death. The class representative, too—in absence of Suzuhara-kun, she cares for Sōryū, even if she gets only token words of appreciation in return.

"Don't be like me," she'd said. "I moved too slowly with Suzuhara."

I'd wondered what that could mean, what she was telling me to do, and in that moment, on the sidewalk with Ikari-kun, I thought I understood: people have a drive to engage each other, to interact. There are people we enjoy interacting with more than others, whom we seek out even when they're not looking for us, when their thoughts are elsewhere. And if there is one such person whom we enjoy above all others, then that person's absence and death incites nothing short of madness.

Or, more simply, it caused the major's tears. The way people show their attachments, show their feelings—a smile alone wasn't enough. I'd seen how they do it, and maybe, I hoped, it would ease the chill of that refrigerator from my heart.

"Ayanami? Hey, do you need to sit down? Should we get you back to the ambulance?"

"No," I said. "I'll be fine."

"But you still—umph!"

His voice was muffled, the sound unintelligible. It's difficult, I imagine, to enunciate clearly when one's lips are touched to another's. I was right—it was warm. The air from Ikari-kun's nose tickled my skin. Ikari-kun shut his eyes tightly, and a gust of wind ruffled his hair. After a moment's hesitation, he touched my shoulder with a slight pressure. I stepped back, and we separated.

It was done—something outside of my purpose, something Ikari Yui would never have done. It was an expression to Ikari-kun of what was inside me, what could not be described in words.

"Ayanami," he said at last, "it's not—I mean I don't—that is—" He scratched his head, his face twisting in helpless, panicked expression. "I don't know…"

"You don't have to say anything."

"I don't think I could. That was…different."

" 'Different'?"

"Yeah! I mean, different from Asuka…"

Sōryū?

"Ah, no, I—I didn't mean it like that! Honest!"

A car drove by, breaking the stillness, and I felt the current of air blow by us on the sidewalk. The mathematics of the situation were simple. If attachments could be measured with numbers, no two would likely be equal. One must be greater than the other. One must be first, and I…

I wasn't. I knew that because, though Sōryū to my eyes rarely returned Ikari-kun's kindness, he worried for her. He cared for her. He didn't need it to be reciprocated.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "It's getting late; can I walk you home?"

I shook my head gently and walked off, into twilight. It's night now, and I've tried for some time to stare into the darkness and stop—to stop thinking, to stop breathing, to be still as to simply not be, but as within the refrigerator, I find I can't accept it. I can't stop being just by will alone. I think back to the events of the day, as I've recorded them here, and how I've changed because of them. I'm not the same person who woke up this morning, and I don't know what that means.

Daylight's coming. Through my window, I see a halo over the mountains.

I think it's an Angel.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

When the Angel Armisael comes to Rei, it finds the loneliness in her heart and reflects it back at her. It was that feeling I wanted to explore for this chapter, as the Rei we know, the Rei I've written since the inception of this story, is about to be irrevocably altered.

Next time, Rei is reborn to face both sides of her inhuman nature. As always, stay tuned to my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com for updates and in-depth notes in each chapter, or follow on twitter, [at]muphrid15.


	7. After Armisael

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**After Armisael**

_Chapter Seven_

Hello.

I've thought for some minutes on the best way to start, but I can think of nothing else to begin with.

My name is Ayanami Rei.

The date is unimportant.

I found this notebook in a brown leather bag. Doctor Akagi said it contained my belongings. The notebook has a blue plastic cover. The label says there should be two hundred sheets within. I've counted—there are one hundred and two. Each sheet has a perforation along the side, where it can be detached easily from the binding. When a sheet is removed, the part on the other side of the perforation is left behind. There are many of these left in this notebook. Whoever detached the other sheets didn't remove these parts. They didn't find it necessary.

Or they didn't care.

I write from my apartment, number 402. I've not seen anyone else living here. There is a refrigerator with medicine bottles on top. There is a bed, and two wide curtains block out the sunlight.

Why am I writing?

I'm writing because I'm alive.

Why am I alive?

I don't know that yet.

I've been alive for two days. That's why I'm different from people. People can't write after two days of living. People can't speak or walk after two days of being alive. A person so young wouldn't know that's unusual either. A person doesn't remember waking up for the first time.

I do.

It was a warm place. I floated in a tube. The clear fluid inside carried my weight. An orange light shined from the bottom. The fluid was in my mouth. The fluid was in my throat. Fluid shouldn't be in those places. Fluid shouldn't be there.

"Rei?" There was a voice outside. I didn't see the woman through the fluid, but she spoke to me anyway. "Rei, listen to me: you have to breathe normally, all right? Just breathe!"

"Does she even know what it means to breathe normally?" said another voice.

"She has a basic comprehension of speech." That was a man, and he approached the tank, watching over the rims of his glasses. "She knows what we're saying," he said.

I coughed. I gagged. I pushed off the tube's wall. I kicked upward to the surface, but there was no air up there. There was no air.

"Just drain it!" said the first woman. "Drain the whole tank!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

The fluid receded. The surface sank below my eyes, and the orange stuff flowed from my mouth. I saw clearly for the first time. A blonde woman in a white coat watched me. A brown-haired woman in a beige uniform sat before an array of screens and buttons. The others—and there were others—stared.

Even the man with tinted glasses and white gloves stared.

They lowered me to the base of the chamber. I sat. The fluid dripped off me. The glass of the tank sank into the floor, and I was exposed to air—cold, cold air.

"Get her a blanket!" said the blonde woman. "Come on, snap to it! Do you all want to do this over again?"

Three technicians draped me in white fabric, and I clutched it close to my skin. They lifted me to my feet. I made the first step from the tube, onto a shiny, metal surface.

"Do you know who you are?"

It was the bearded man. He didn't touch me like the others. He only watched.

"Do you know who I am?"

My knees buckled, and the technicians let me go. I sat at the base of the tank. I shook my head.

"Bring in the gurney," said the blonde woman, the scientist. "Let's get her checked out."

The others wheeled in a metal cart and equipment. The bearded man leaned beside me.

"You're Ayanami Rei," he whispered in my ear, "and you've been saved—preserved—for a purpose."

He looked at me.

"Never forget that you have a purpose."

I haven't forgotten, but Commander Ikari—that is his name—hasn't told me for what or why. I don't think he means to until the time for me to fulfill it. It's a secret to everyone, including me.

Especially me.

The blonde scientist woman and her people—nurses and technicians—carried me onto the gurney. They stuck needles in my arm. They squeezed bags of saline and drugs to flow through my veins. They wheeled me to a gray room with writing on the walls: _top_, _bottom_, _strangeness_, _titanium oxide_. They laid me on a table before a plain white curtain.

"Do you remember this place?" asked the scientist.

"No," I said, "but it is familiar."

"It is either familiar or unfamiliar," she said. "Be specific."

Most of the words described quarks—subatomic particles that make up protons and neutrons. The rest of the laboratory was similar to the apartment I sit in now. Sparse it was. But for a bed, a curtain, and a small refrigerator, it was barren.

I didn't know that at the time. I'd yet to visit this apartment.

"Unfamiliar, then?" asked the scientist.

I nodded, and she said no more. She only watched.

Her nurses and staff pulled the blanket away. They shined lights in my eyes. They tapped my knees with a reflex hammer and pressed a stethoscope to my breast. I coughed for them until they said to stop. They made me lie back and open my legs.

"Doctor Akagi." The Commander stepped forward. "I don't think that's necessary."

The blonde-haired scientist squinted at a clipboard. "It's part of the standard workup."

"Forgo it."

"I'm fairly certain you don't want her keeling over from a tumor because we didn't look. Ask the vice commander how many we lost last month. They grow so fast—"

"How long would she have if she were ill?"

The doctor blinked. "Well, she wouldn't have made it this far if she didn't have at least a few weeks."

"She won't need to live longer than that."

The nurses looked to Doctor Akagi. She frowned.

"Very well," she said, making the empty checkbox with her blue pen.

"You can sit up now," said the brown-haired technician. She stood between me and the Commander. "Well?" she said to him. "Are you happy now that you've given a woman a gynecological exam for the first time?"

"Lieutenant Ibuki, hold your tongue!" said the doctor. "You will show Commander Ikari the proper respect!"

"It's all right." The Commander raised a hand, silencing her. "The lieutenant clearly doesn't know what she's saying."

"And why's that?" said the lieutenant.

"Because you've met my son."

Blood rushed into the lieutenant's cheeks. She didn't say another word.

Treatments followed. The technicians laid me face up on the table and stuck me with needles all over. They ran electrical current between the pins. My muscles tensed and relaxed three hundred and seventy-two times in total. I didn't keep count. They did.

Between the jolts the technicians whispered to each other. They faced their monitors and keyboards, but their eyes and heads they turned toward me. "Can you believe it?" said one. "The tank was creepy enough, but to bring one out, have her walking and talking like this?"

"She isn't walking yet," said another.

"Silence, all of you," said Doctor Akagi. "Let me remind you that this work is classified. It is _not_ for lunchtime gossip."

"Speaking of lunch, doctor, don't you think it's about time we took a break?" said a technician.

A jolt of electricity tensed the muscles in my back.

"Does it look like we're at a point we can take a break?" said the doctor. "No? Keep working. No complaining."

There was a collective groan in the laboratory.

"Even so, Doctor Akagi," said the Commander, "it's admirable work."

The doctor wrote a note on her clipboard. "Your compliments could carry more weight with me."

"How so?"

"For one, when you talk to me, you could look at me instead of her."

The nurses drew out the pins and collected them—with droplets of blood—in a steel bowl. They sat me upright on the table. They brought bandages and rubbing alcohol. They gave me clothes to wear: a school uniform, white and green; black socks and a red ribbon. They covered my eye in a square bandage. They bound my arm in a sling.

"Appearances are important," said the Commander. "You will meet people, people who don't understand what has happened. These bandages are for show. They are, at minimum, what others would expect if they saw you."

" 'Expect'?" I said.

Behind the Commander, the doctor and the lieutenant exchanged a glance.

"If you had lived," the Commander said.

The doctor explained it. I was a pilot of Evangelion. I defended the new city Tōkyō-3 from the Angel invasion. I died in the battle, but thanks to this procedure, I was saved. The doctor and her assistants had preserved "the essence of who I was." They gave me knowledge. They gave me the ability to speak and write and read.

"Everything else," said Doctor Akagi, "is beyond our power to put back."

They nurses brought back the gurney. A clear capsule sat atop it, opened at the midline. They carried me off the table. They put me inside. They closed the lid and covered it in a white sheet. They left me in the dark.

"Don't panic," said the doctor. "We're just taking you to the hospital ward."

They wheeled me places. An elevator pulled the gurney upward, and my weight pressed against the bottom of the capsule. The hospital ward was not like the laboratory. People spoke openly. There were booming voices over speakers. We navigated hallways and corners, but I didn't see what it was like until we entered the room.

"You won't have to stay here for long." Doctor Akagi let me out and covered the capsule the same as it when I was in it, and two assistants walked the gurney out. "It's just for appearances' sake," she said.

I sat on the hospital bed. The sheets were white. The walls and ceiling were tinted blue. It made the sheets look blue, too.

"Is something wrong?"

The doctor stood in the doorway. We were alone.

"If it's about him," she said, "he never boarded the elevator. Does that concern you?"

I looked at the wall.

"It's strange, isn't it? From the moment you wake up, he whispers in your ear. He tells you how needed you are, but once you stand on your own two feet, once your clothes are back on, he's gone. He's there when you're at your most vulnerable, but past that…" She sighed. "Maybe we're most vulnerable when we're alone."

I looked at the wall.

"Well, say little about what's happened in the last few hours, or else we may have to start again. Understand?"

I nodded.

"You don't have to stay here," she said. "You may walk the hallway freely. Look outside. See what you remember."

"I will remember?"

"You may feel like some things are familiar, but…" She frowned. "No, you won't remember a thing."

Doctor Akagi hasn't been wrong. I have books in this apartment, this room with my name written above the door, but I don't know where or when I received them. They tell me how a DNA strand splits so that matching nucleotides will bond with each half and create two molecules from one, but that is something I already know. At the hospital, I touched the glass of the hallway window. I looked outside. A mountain jutted over the horizon. Trees and shrubs dotted the soil below. I know what they're made of—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and iron. I know the trees have branches and leaves. I know the flowers have stems and petals. I don't know when I learned these things. I know much, but I remember nothing.

"Ayanami!"

A voice cried out, and I didn't remember whose it was, either.

He jogged toward me from the corner of the hall. There was a woman with him—behind him—but I didn't see her clearly. She looked at us for a moment then sat down, out of sight.

"I can't believe it," said the boy, panting. "I really thought you were gone."

I sat on a row of waiting chairs, and the boy leaned against the wall beside me. It was an unnerving situation. The doctor and the Commander hadn't prepared me for it, yet they expected me not to draw attention and face consequences otherwise. I didn't know who this person was. Could he be family? A brother? A classmate? A stranger wouldn't care if I lived or died. Even the technicians thought my life a curiosity. They thought I wasn't real.

The boy told me he was glad I lived, that he was thankful I'd sacrificed myself to save him. I only found out later, from Doctor Akagi, what had happened. The boy and I are both pilots. He's the Commander's son—Ikari Shinji-kun. We fought the invader together, the one called an Angel, but it infected me. It corrupted my Eva, and it meant to infect Ikari-kun's, too. "We think you tried to pull it inside Unit-00," the doctor said later. "You reversed the AT field to keep it in. You said yourself that, if you left Unit-00, the AT field would vanish and it would all be for naught. So yes, you did make a sacrifice. You activated the Drive D controller and destroyed the Evangelion, the Angel, yourself, and half of Tōkyō-3 in the process."

"That is a victory?" I'd said. "That doesn't sound like something to be happy about."

"Happiness is relative," said the doctor. "It's terrible that so much of the city was wiped out, but it's better than the alternative. The danger to you and others was extreme. I don't think anyone can or would question your actions. Shinji-kun's happy to be alive, I'm sure. He's happy you are, too, even if the Rei he knows isn't quite here anymore."

That I know well. Ikari-kun and I spoke for some time outside my hospital room. I did not remember what had happened. I could only take him at his word. He wondered if I remembered, but that wasn't the issue. I was the third, at least—the scientists and nurses were too efficient for it to have been the first time. I tried to explain that to him, but he didn't understand.

"Ayanami," he said, "you're different. Is this about what happened the other day?"

I said _no_. I couldn't have known what he meant, and Doctor Akagi, when I asked her later, didn't know either. Ikari-kun was right to suspect, but he would never have guessed the truth. "When a flower no longer responds to sunlight or water," the doctor said, "the gardener assumes something's wrong. It could be a pest or a fungus or something else. Never would he suspect that the flower has been replaced with another, identical in color and size but different in all other respects. You must bear with Shinji-kun; he thinks he's looking at the same flower."

I don't think Ikari-kun looked out the window or studied the flowers.

He left me. He said he understood I was tired and needed to sleep. When he left, he looked over his shoulder and whispered to his companion. The woman in the red jacket looked at me, too. I don't know what she said.

Ikari-kun was mistaken, though. I didn't need to sleep.

I stayed at the hospital overnight. I looked at the ceiling as the twilight turned black. I was alive again. I was alive and in a quiet, empty place. What am I alive for? For whom and why? I looked into the black, but there were no answers in that place. Listening to the cicadas, I realized it—focusing on the emptiness just allowed me to avoid the questions.

What questions?

Why am I alive?

For what purpose?

For whom?

It is unsettling—falling asleep for the first time. It feels as if to disappear into the same void one emerged from. I feared it. When I caught myself drifting to sleep, I fought it. There was too great a chance I would wake up again having lost all that came before.

I didn't sleep much, but I did sleep. I know because one moment it was night,and the next—

"Well hello there."

The next, there was Doctor Akagi with a blue breakfast tray in one hand and my schoolbag in the other.

"How does it feel?" she asked. "Starting your second day of being alive again?"

It seemed no different from the first, I told her, but I had questions. There were concepts I wanted to understand, the names of people and events that I had no recollection of. It was over that breakfast she told me of Ikari-kun. She explained to me the war against the Angels that we fought—how they meant to merge with the giant Adam in the lowest level of the Geofront to make a world of creatures in their image. Some of this knowledge I remembered. I knew of wars between people in the wake of an extreme cataclysm, but that was human history. Of my own, I knew nothing.

"Well, let me see," said the doctor, giving me a bowl of rice to consume. "Before all this, you lived alone. You were close with Shinji-kun, I think, but you said little about it, at least to me. You were close to Commander Ikari, too. He invited you to dinner once, if I recall, but he said later on that he forgot about another dinner date and had to send you away. I'm sure he had a good reason for that mistake, right?"

I left my chopsticks in the bowl. "I don't remember," I said.

"Ah, so you wouldn't, of course."

Of course. The doctor knew that, too. It seemed strange to me that she'd forget.

"This isn't too lovely a place to be, is it," said the doctor.

It wasn't.

"Perhaps you'd like to go home?"

"Is that an order?"

"It is, actually. Let me do one more checkup on you, and if you're fit physically and mentally to move on, then you've done enough here to keep up appearances."

"Whose order is it?" I asked.

"Commander Ikari's, of course. Are you surprised?"

I wasn't.

I removed my clothes for Doctor Akagi, but she asked I leave the bandages in place. "It'll be easier that way," she said, "so we don't have to put them back on again." She checked my vision and breathing. She said I was fit and that it would be better to leave before a real doctor examined me and thought something amiss.

" 'The wondrous city of Tōkyō-3, built from historic Hakone.' " She read from a pamphlet, smiling to herself. "Honestly, they tried to make it sound like a real tourist destination. Not anymore." She laid the map flat on my tray. "The route from here to your apartment is in red, but be careful: this map is from before. You might have to improvise."

"I go alone?" I said.

"Yes, unfortunately. There's no one to spare, I'm afraid."

"And Doctor Akagi herself?" I asked.

"I'm afraid I have a sudden meeting with the Committee," she said. "So sorry."

She left the map and bag. I took them. There was nothing else to do. I closed the door to my hospital room and walked down the hall alone, but even with the map, I was unprepared. The intensive care ward had been quiet. The rest of the hospital wasn't. Doctors and nurses ran through the halls with gurneys. The instruments beeped and hissed. In the lobby, waiting patients sat on the floor or lay on sleeping bags. A piece of glass from a vending machine fell, cracked and shattered. People stepped on the shards anyway and ran off with packs of chocolate candy.

Leaving the hospital, I entered direct sunlight for the first time that morning, but the shadow of a cargo plane blocked out the brightest star. This is what the world was after my death: the explosion had blasted a crater into the earth. It breached the nearby lake, and the water there had already filled the void. The doctor was right again—had I followed her route directly, I'd have drowned. I walked the red line until the road it traced went headlong into the water. From there, I followed the edge of the crater. I walked on roads where they were intact. I stayed close to the edge where felled buildings or disrupted earth blocked the smoother paths. The lake's waters were brown and murky, rife with pollution and loose dirt. Flyers and advertisements lapped up on the new shoreline, their ink having long washed away. Utility poles snapped in two and stuck out from the surface. Propeller planes and helicopters circled the crater like infectious flies. I realized their purpose only when I walked further, away from the crater.

When I started to see people again.

At first it was just a car. A truck drove slowly over the broken road. Two adults and five children clung to the flatbed, bouncing erratically as the truck navigated each crack. "Young lady," said the driver, leaning out his window, "do you need a lift?"

I shook my head.

"Are you sure? It's dangerous to be alone out here. Rumor has it there are looters taking over just a few blocks away, and you're injured, too."

I wasn't. The man smelled. The children in the flatbed smelled. They were sweaty and dirty. They looked to the bottom of a clear, plastic bottle, but only a single drop of water came out.

"Well," said the driver, "all the best to you then."

The trains stood still, resting on severed tracks. People on the street huddled under awnings and in alleys for shade, even if the buildings around them had cracked or crumbled. That's why the planes and helicopters were necessary. They dropped boxes of foods and water with parachutes. The defense forces patrolled in their armored vehicles with guns and helmets. They gave energy bars to the hungry children and chased the thieves who took computers and television screens. Not all the city was like that. As I made my way around and away from the crater, there were places with working lights again, where the water that leaked from broken pipes was clear, not muddy. In these places, there were more people but less food, less shelter.

I saved these people once. I delivered them to nothingness. If that's what I did in piloting Eva, is my purpose meaningful? Is my life worth renewing again and again until there's no one left to bring me back?

The apartment complex Doctor Akagi indicated on my map was a string of buildings all along a single road. They were safe, undamaged, and free of refugees but for one car.

"Ayanami-san!"

It was a green car, shiny and metallic. A girl stepped out from the back seat, amid bags and boxes that were strapped to the car with bungie cord. The girl's uniform was green, too.

Her uniform was like mine.

"Amazing." She stopped me on the sidewalk, halfway up the path to the lobby. "I heard from Ikari-kun you survived, but to think, after that big explosion, that you'd be walking around and back home already!"

I said nothing.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "This looks strange, doesn't it? That's our friend Nakamura-san's car. He and his wife offered to take us out of the city with them." She looked down. "Our house is gone, you see. It's not your fault, of course—just part of the lake came out that way and, well, the whole street is still underwater. Aida-kun and Suzuhara's homes were in the blast zone. They're both leaving, too. We're going to try to go together to Tōkyō-2, but the way things are right now, nobody knows if we'll even be able to stay in touch."

I said nothing.

"Did you hear about the school?"

"No."

"It's gone, too, as you might expect." She sighed. "Well, I know you can't leave, but when it's all over, come find us, okay? And if you see Asuka, I guess we lost track of her. Take care of her for me, won't you? Even though I know you're not friends. You and Asuka and Ikari-kun—oh, did you tell him?"

" 'Tell'?"

"About your feelings?"

I couldn't say if I had.

"You didn't? Well you should. I hope you do. If nothing else, all this…" She looked over the crater. "This should tell you to."

"Big Sister!" A child called from the sedan. "Kodama wants us to go before it gets dark!"

"Okay!" the girl called back. "Well, until next time, Ayanami Rei-san." She bowed slightly.

"You," I said.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Who are you?"

She blinked, her eyes wide. Her lips parted, but she didn't speak.

There was a honking from the car. "Big Sister!"

"Just a minute!" she said. "I am—well I was—class representative for our homeroom. We went to school together."

"I see."

More honking. "Big Sister!"

"All right, all right!"

She trotted down the walkway, meeting the sedan at the street. I swiped my residence card at the building entrance.

"Ayanami-san!"

I turned.

"Take care of yourself, okay?"

The entrance door closed behind me. The lobby was silent.

I don't know her name. I don't even know most of what she talked about. The life I've come to is full of these things—fragments that are forever lost to me. I entered the apartment with my name on it, but I'm not sure if I can call it mine. The books I've read, but they told me nothing. Even the one that was unlike the others told me nothing. I read that book from cover to cover. I know the author's name. I know he lived in England in the nineteenth century. I know he was prolific and famous. I know of the French Revolution, for it is like all the wars people have fought against each other. Those are facts. The characters, however—the barrister, the marquis, the revolutionaries—they are new to me. I can never know if I met them before. What they do is incomprehensible to me, for I can't imagine doing the same. I can't imagine. Who would I give myself for, as the barrister gives himself for the marquis?

Ikari-kun? I already sacrificed myself for him. I died for everyone.

No, that's wrong. I'm a different person. I should not be deceived like the people who see me are. I may look like the second one, but we're not the same. She had connections with people. I am blank. She had textbooks on genetics and physics. I don't know what they mean.

She kept a pair of glasses.

I didn't understand at the time. But I saw those glasses, and they affected me. I held them in my hands, standing before the curtain. They were something she cared about, but I didn't understand what they meant. I squeezed them. I twisted the lenses, my hands shaking.

I cried over them.

I haven't cried before. It should've be the first time I'd seen tears, and yet, unlike the rest of this apartment, it seemed too familiar.

I didn't understand it then. I didn't understand until that night, when the woman came. She knocked on my door, and when I opened it, she smiled.

"Hello, Rei," she said. "Do you know who I am?"

It was the woman from the hospital, the one with Ikari-kun. I recognized her red jacket.

"I'm Major Katsuragi," she said. "We work together." She frowned. "We used to work together. May I come in?"

I stepped aside, leaving the door open.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," she said. "I can't be here long. The security agents are watching."

"Security?" I said.

"You haven't seen them? They're making sure you don't leave. Commander Ikari has all the pilots on lockdown. Things are tense right now." She scratched her head. "But it would be understandable if you didn't know that."

Major Katsuragi. She's an interesting person. She caught me off-guard.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"I'm fine."

"I see. That's good. Unusual, perhaps, but good."

"Unusual?" I said.

"A little, isn't it? I mean, here you are, having just been salvaged from Unit-00's wreckage, and you have hardly a scratch on you."

She looked at the bandages I'd left on the floor.

"Even without any physical injury, it'd be typical—expected, even—that you'd bear some scars from that. Not on your skin or in your bones, of course, but, you know…"

I didn't.

"A normal person would be angry," she said. "A normal person would be sick of the way things are. Isn't that how you feel, Rei?"

I didn't know how I felt at that moment, but I'm not a normal person. The major knew that. She taunted me with those questions. Whether I wanted to be alive, in this body that people remembered but a world I'd forgotten—that was not her concern.

"What is your purpose here, major?" I asked.

She tilted her head, frowning. "That's just like you, isn't it? Even now, you don't take long to get to the point. All right then. You don't remember, so I'll tell you." She sat on my bed, sighing. "For a long time, I've been trying to uncover what's hidden. I lost someone close to me for it. I almost did something to you that's…" She looked away. "Unspeakable, really. How strange it is—to contemplate ending a life only to see another take many more. It shakes you inside, or it should, if you still have a soul left at all."

"Major?"

"I know now what you are, Rei. I made Ritsuko take me there tonight. I saw the graveyard of failed Eva. I saw the tank where dozens of clones swam happily, naked and smiling. They seemed so blissful, being empty."

"If you didn't know, it's something I doubt you're meant to," I said.

"Without a doubt," she said, "but I had to find out: where the dummy plugs come from, where the tons of water and chemicals were going. Even then, I wasn't prepared." She shook her head. "Neither was Shinji-kun."

"Ikari-kun?"

"That's right. Ritsuko wanted him to see it, too. You know, I've known that woman for ten years. I didn't think she could surprise me anymore. I didn't think she could be so full of jealousy and hate."

"To whom?"

"To you. Rei, she killed them—all of them. All the others that were like you are gone. You're the only one left."

That's right. I'm alone now. I'm separate. I'm unique. I'm the only one left. I can't be brought back again. I couldn't be brought back again. If I died again, it would be for the last time.

"I realize now that you were trying to tell me what you could," she said. "That you knew what would happen if Commander Ikari were unhappy with you. He wouldn't have to discipline you. He had no need to. If things got bad enough, he could reset you. He could bring you back like this—blank and new. I don't agree with Ristuko's motives. I don't condone her anger, but I heard how you were with Shinji-kun. I see how you are now. Since I saw it with my own eyes, I'm not afraid to believe it: you're not the same, and that's appalling. What Ritsuko and Commander Ikari have done to you—it's wrong."

The major couldn't have been more correct. This world I'd been thrust into was full of people and things—people who should have connections to me, objects that should have significance. They brought me back to a world without context. They gave me back a notebook with the written sheets ripped out. I can feel, on the pages that remain, the impressions of a pen that someone else held, but what she thought when she wrote there is lost forever. They gave me a name. They gave me a face. They gave me an impression of being like the other one, but I'm not. While they could bring me back again and again, that didn't matter. Nothing would change.

But the major told me that night they couldn't do that anymore.

"Now I understand," she said. "They need you for something. You're the key after all, but not for what you know or who you are. Your existence alone is the point of it. It's disgusting, but it's the truth." She buried her face in her hands, sighing. "I need your help, Rei. My sources are being pressured, but you're still on the inside."

I faced the refrigerator. A beaker of water sat there. I found a prescription note and a clear orange bottle. I undid the safety cap and shook out two large, white pills.

"If you feel any anger for what they've done to you, if you dislike them at all for their cavalier treatment of a life, you'll help me, won't you? I know what you're thinking, but this goes beyond a woman's need to dig up gossip and secrets. With what the Committee's planning, with what Commander Ikari's done—I think they want a Third Impact. I think they're counting on it, and the only thing that's been important so far is making sure an Angel doesn't start it first."

I swallowed the two pills. They went down easily. The major was misguided and mistaken. Third Impact—such a term was foreign to me, but it spoke of death and mayhem. She would save people from calamity and force them to endure the hardship that followed. I'd seen that. I saw it by the edge of the crater lake. I saw it from the defense forces who chased looters and angry mobs in the streets. She would save them from nothing. People like her, I thought, were the ones who brought me back.

"Rei? Are you listening?"

I shook the bottle, and two more pills came out. "Yes, major."

"I know you must still be in shock, having just come into this world again not knowing what everything is, but I believe people have to have a basic compassion for one another. If they don't, we're all doomed anyway. There are men in control out there, doing whatever they want, shielding themselves in lie after lie. I'm sick of it. What they want serves them and only them; they don't care what anyone else thinks."

It wasn't my concern; it wasn't my purpose. Then again, what I was doing then, as she spoke, was likely not my purpose, either. I didn't care. This world was empty to me. It had lost all meaning. The glasses by the curtain had lost all meaning, but they were still there. That's why I hate them.

That's why I want to die.

"Haven't you had enough of those?" asked the major.

I swallowed, shaking the bottle. Four pills rolled out. "This the recommended dosage," I said.

"Is it?"

"Please go, major. I'm tired."

"Uh-huh. Let me see that prescription scrip."

I upended the bottle. The pills spilled out, but I caught most of them. More than enough.

"Rei, stop, listen to me—"

I stuffed them into my mouth, three or four at a time. It was harder to swallow that way, but I forced myself to. I swallowed twice. That was all I had time for.

Before the major punched me across my left cheek.

Pills sputtered out. I stumbled into the wall, holding my chin and cheekbone.

"Sorry," she said, shaking her wrist. "I know it hurts. I can only guess what it must be like. What is it you're thinking? That your situation, your life—it fucking sucks, is that it? That's probably right, but this?" She snatched the pill bottle from me. "This won't change anything. You want your life to be better? You have to have the will to live, the will to do things that are hard, to do what you're afraid of. I know you're not afraid of this!"

She hurled the bottle into a corner, and it bounced harmlessly into shadow.

"You're afraid to live."

The major said some other things, but the room grew blurry and faint. When I woke up, I was in one of those blue rooms again.

The major, I learned, had carried me to her vehicle and driven me to the hospital. She convinced the nurses that Doctor Akagi, in her anger, deliberately gave me the wrong dosage instructions. "Clever," said the major, "don't you think?"

That time, before dawn, the major drove me back to my apartment, past the roadblocks and the wreckage of the destroyed city. "Forget everything I said," she told me. "Whether you want to help me or not, that's your decision, and this time, I'll respect it. Whether you want to live or not, that's your decision, and I'll accept that, too. But like I said, if people always do the easy thing, they'll never change. You'll never change. So, I challenge you, Rei, to learn to live—to make something of the time given to you."

Easy advice that is to give. Even now, I look to the fresh, full bottle of pills atop my refrigerator. The major left them on purpose. She insisted that I have the choice. I haven't opened the cap yet. I don't know if I will. For all the major's pleading, she gave me no incentive to stay alive. Even the Commander and Doctor Akagi gave me a purpose.

But none of them can give me a reason.

I've left the top page of this notebook blank. It's the last I have of her, the second. When I run my fingertips over the page, I feel the impressions of her writing, the indentations of her pen strokes. It's precise. It's neat. I wonder now—how did she feel? Did she know of this purpose she lived for?

Did she embrace it?

Did she reject it?

Did she choose some other path instead?

She must have, or this notebook wouldn't exist. This thing captured what she was. This where she put her thoughts, not others'. She had her own opinions. She had her own wishes. She might not have expressed them. She might've kept them to herself, but they existed. They were real.

I can never be that person again. I never was that person, but like her, I write to find a reason to live. That reason can come from no one else. It is mine. It is mine alone.

And if I don't find it, the pills on my refrigerator will still be there, to let me sink into nothingness and no longer be.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

There are several theories on what Rei remembers after she's reborn. I chose the most conservative route because it seemed like the one most dramatic to use, the one that punctuates how removed she is from her old life. It is, in some ways, a cruel choice, but I felt it best for the story at hand.

Coming soon, Kaworu joins the pilots' ranks, but this is no ordinary boy, and his interest in Rei will challenge everything she thought she was. Check out my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com for commentary on this and other chapters, or follow me on twitter, [at]muphrid15.


	8. Before Tabris

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**Before Tabris**

_Chapter Eight_

I met the Fifth one week after I was brought to life again. Doctor Akagi was gone. Vice Commander Fuyutsuki had summoned us for a synchronization test. I didn't meet the Fifth right away. I arrived at the lockers in my uniform, the uniform for a school that no longer exists. That's where I saw someone else. We collided at the door. He stumbled, catching himself.

"Guh!" he said. "Sorry, I didn't look—"

Then he did.

"Oh," he said. "Ayanami."

He wore the skin-tight suit they'd given us. His was blue all over, light on his chest, darker below the waist and on his sleeves. Mine was different.

"I'm surprised," said Ikari-kun. "I didn't think you'd be needed after…"

As was I. I didn't see the point. The Evangelion I'd piloted was in pieces under the crater lake, but the vice commander insisted. The major insisted. Therefore, I complied.

"Well," he said, looking down. "I'm in your way." He stepped aside and jogged down the hallway.

"Ikari-kun," I said.

He stiffened. He stopped at the corner, facing away.

"I don't know which locker is mine," I said.

"Oh, it's got your name on it. You don't need me there to show you, right?"

He ran off.

Ikari-kun was right. I found my locker quickly. I removed my clothes. I donned the white suit, and a button at the wrist tightened it. The material conformed to my flesh. I stored my uniform in the locker. On the inside of the door, there was a full-length mirror. It would've been tedious to come back because a piece of equipment was out of place. I checked my appearance. I looked at my legs.

There were many legs.

They sprouted from my knees. They were human legs, all in pairs, miniature and writhing. From the white material, they stuck out. They kicked.

I slammed the locker shut, and it echoed. It reverberated through the room. I looked away, and I felt down there. It wasn't real. It couldn't have been, I thought.

But it wasn't the first time I'd glimpsed a reflection that wasn't mine, that belonged to something else.

I opened the locker slowly and gazed into the mirror. I saw no sprouting legs or a masked face with seven eyes, but I thought there was a darkness in the center of the reflection. It was a blind spot that I could perceive but never touch.

Maybe Ikari-kun saw it, too. It had been eight days since I was brought back and six days since the major took me to the hospital ward and pumped my stomach. I'd made the decision to live and make my own choice, but that boy—Ikari Shinji-kun—he ran away from me.

It was the same after the synchronization test. The vice commander allowed him and the Fifth to leave before me. When I returned to the locker with the mirror inside, the room was empty. I changed quickly and left.

"Ah, Shinji-kun?" The major peered inside as I departed. "He's not here, is he?"

I shook my head.

"He's avoiding you, too?" she said. "I don't understand that boy. It's not good to withdraw, to isolate yourself from friends and people who care about you."

There must've been a reason.

"I bet I know where he's gone," said the major. "It would be just like him to go away from people who can voice their disapproval and seek comfort in someone else. It's just like with him and his father." She tilted her head. "Say, maybe you'll find him there?"

"Where?" I said.

She told me of the place and how to get there: which elevators to take, which stairs to avoid. It was familiar to me, so it wasn't difficult.

"But only if you want," she said. "To catch Shinji-kun when he's vulnerable, that is."

"Major?" I said.

"I thought to give him space would be best for him to heal, but I see now when you give him space he just retreats and makes the gap even wider. Go confront him, Rei. I know he's shying away from you, and it must make you wonder what you two used to be like, yes?"

I walked away.

"Ah, Rei, wait a minute," she said, "you're not wearing—"

"Correct."

"But why?"

"It was expedient."

"And the other…?"

"Also correct."

"My, my, eager to give a show, are we?"

"Major?"

"Rei, go back in there and put your clothes on properly this time. You're not allowed to do those things until you're at least my age."

That was not expedient, but I obeyed. The major's outlook on the world was strange. How could the purpose of clothes no one sees dependent on age?

But she was right about the other thing. I'd been looking for Ikari-kun over those six days. I'd seen him little since he visited me in the hospital. At that time, I still wore my bandages. The major had said, one of those days, that Ikari-kun and I were connected. "When I held you in my apartment," she'd said, "it was Shinji-kun who called in the cavalry to save you. You left that night in a hurry, and it saddened him, but he wouldn't say what happened or why."

It was the major who told me to live for something, but to that point, I'd learned nothing of what I could be. Ikari-kun was avoiding me. The major and the others—they didn't know who I'd been, who the second had been. I carried with me for that week the bottle of pills. I kept it close. I wouldn't stay in that place, forced to live, for one second longer than I wanted. The major had been right, though: I had the power to break the cycle of death and rebirth. I could die one last time if I wanted, at any time.

Then I would be gone for good. I'd disappear to nothingness.

I'd be alone.

That wasn't enough. Ikari-kun knew what the second had been like. The major had told me he hadn't come home of late. "But," she'd said, "there's one place I know he'll go. Shinji-kun watches over his friends, no matter what."

So I followed her directions. I took the great escalator to the surface. That's when I met the Fifth. He stood at the top. He had his hands in his pockets, facing me.

"You're the First Child, aren't you?"

I said nothing.

"Ayanami Rei?"

I said nothing.

"You and I are the same, aren't we?"

I said nothing.

"So," he said, "we've both taken the same form as the Lilin while inhabiting this planet."

"Who are you?" I asked.

The Fifth smiled to himself, chuckling. He took the opposite escalator, going down to the Geofront. "Interesting," he said. "Very interesting."

I watched him descend until his head fell below the railing. He was pale. He was something foreign, something that didn't belong.

He was like me.

How could there be another who was the same as me? That question I couldn't answer, not then. I moved on, toward my destination, but I didn't forget the Fifth's knowing grin.

The major had given me directions to that place, but I knew where to go. It was the first place outside the tank or the laboratory that I could remember. A week had passed since I left that place. The halls were still white with a tinge of blue. The doctors and nurses no longer ran through the halls. The crowd at emergency had thinned, but some—the more desperate, the more feeble—lingered. I didn't stop to see what maladies ailed them. They weren't my concern. That task fell to doctors who were meant to keep them alive. I had another place to go to.

At that place, the numbers _303_ were painted above the door in black. There was writing on the side, too. "Sōryū," it read. "Asuka Langley."

It was a girl's room.

There were four tall windows on the far side of the bed. The sunlight was bright, yet the hospital staff kept two fluorescent lights from the ceiling on. A heart monitor beeped with the girl's pulse, and a bag of intravenous fluids hung from a stand.

She stared.

She stared at the ceiling, eyes wide, but she said nothing when I entered the room. She blinked occasionally. That's all.

She was like me. She was forced to live. Nurses had taped her wrists. I'm sure they brought bags of blood for her and put the fluids back that she lost. They saved her life, but she found a way to stop living. She froze herself in her body. She used it as a shell and retreated within. She'd been a pilot, but not anymore, not since the Fifth had come. The major had told me about her. "She's very prideful," the major had said. "I don't mean to be rude in saying so, but she didn't get along with most people, whether it was you, who didn't try to engage her, or Shinji-kun, who wanted her as a friend. I think trying to prove her self-worth as a person was so important to her it alienated the people who might care for her, and it drove her so mad she couldn't be the best she finally settled into a rusty bathtub to let her life seep into the water and slip away."

I didn't know who this girl was, but if the major had given me a true picture of her, then I understood well enough. She'd wanted self-satisfaction. She didn't get it. What reason was there to go on living, then?

I sat on the stool at her bedside. I read to the rhythm of her heart, a constant reminder that we both were alive, though we didn't want to be.

"Asuka?"

The lock on the door jittered. It was Ikari-kun.

"I brought some stew for you. I thought maybe it'd be like a taste of back home, back in Germany, right? That is, um…" The lock shook. "If I can get inside without spilling this."

I stood up. The stool scratched the floor.

"Asuka? You're awake in there, aren't you?" The door rattled. "Asuka, speak to me!"

I turned the knob. Ikari-kun balanced a bowl of brown stew on a tray, trying to steady the sloshing broth with one arm while reaching for the door with the other.

"Ayanami?"

To the sound of the overhead speaker, a pair of nurses jogged by. Ikari-kun peered past me, into the room.

"Asuka," he said. "She isn't awake, is she."

"No."

He looked at my shoes. "But Ayanami came to visit; that's nice of you."

I said nothing.

"Am I in your way?" he said.

I said nothing.

"You're not leaving?"

I said nothing.

"Of course. I guess, um, maybe if you could leave this for her?" he said, offering the tray.

"What is its purpose?"

"It's just a nice thing to do. It makes me feel like she's still here."

"She is."

His head come up. "Yeah, yeah she is, so if you could—"

I stepped aside. "You may enter."

"You're not leaving?" he said again. "That's okay; maybe…" He stepped back. "Maybe it's better if I just take this way. I don't want the nurses upset because of the food or anything, since I have to go."

"You must go?"

"Uh, yeah! I just came to give this to her, but you know, you convinced me that it's a bad idea, so I should go. Yeah. I'm going. Going!" He took two frantic steps down the hall.

"Hey, kid, look out!" said a voice.

There was a _thud_. The tray tilted. Ikari-kun ran headlong into a defibrillation cart. The bowl of stew flipped end-over-end. It missed the paddles and the two attendants. It didn't miss Ikari-kun.

"Gah!" he cried, a piece of pork sticking in his hair. "Hot-hot-hot!"

One of the nurses stayed behind while his companion ran the crash cart to the emergency. He ordered me to fetch paper from the toilet and dry the steaming broth. With ointment and cold packs, he treated Ikari-kun's skin and hoped to mitigate any burns Ikari-kun suffered. Though he wasn't permanently harmed, Ikari-kun's clothes were stained, and he sat at the base of the door, motionless.

"All this," he said, speaking to the floor, "but you stayed. Why?"

"You've been evasive," I said.

"You noticed?" He sighed. "I guess that was just a matter of time."

"Why?"

"It got more difficult, trying to hurry or slow down and make it not look conspicuous."

"That's not what I asked."

"Yeah," he said. "I know." He looked up. The back of his head tapped the wall. "It's funny. I thought I'd forgotten what my mother looked like. Then Ritsuko-san told me I saw it—my mother's death, the accident that killed her. I realized then I must've wanted to forget, so it wouldn't be painful when I remembered, but I did remember, somehow. I remembered every time I looked Ayanami in the eye."

I'd not considered that—where my body had come from. It stood to reason that the people who made me would choose someone who'd died, someone they wanted to bring back.

"I wonder," said Ikari-kun. "I wonder what Father's trying to do. What was he thinking, making someone like you? How does he sleep?" He shook his head. "I look at you, and I see all the others. They smiled so easily. The Ayanami before—it took a lot for her to smile. She was my friend, but I only felt like she was happy once or twice." He pressed his fingers to his temples and pushed. "Honestly, I don't know what to think. She kissed me. _You_ kissed me, and you're my mother! That shouldn't happen; you shouldn't even exist!"

I shouldn't exist.

Ikari-kun was right about that. This body, with me inside it, never should've been. This body I use to write with—it was made. It was fabricated. Had that man been accepted death, I wouldn't be.

But Ikari-kun didn't know that at the time, and he panicked as soon as the words left his lips. "I didn't mean that!" he said. "That's not what I should've said. It's just—I don't know what to think. I feel like, when I see you, I want to start talking about things that happened, but then I remember you don't know those things, and it's like you died all over again."

No matter what Ikari-kun wished for, he couldn't put my memories back in my head. He feared those painful feelings. It was better to avoid me altogether. Even when I left Ikari-kun that day, he was uncomfortable. I let him have his time with the former pilot of Unit-02. He'd explained enough for me. He made it clear: he considered the one before me a friend, not me. Had she died and not come back as me, he would've been hurt only once, not every time he saw me. He was a victim of someone else's need.

The need that brought me back.

Why am I alive?

That question—I couldn't answer it at the time, nor can I now. Someone brought me back. Ikari-kun thought it was his father, the Commander.

The Commander wears glasses.

I have a pair of glasses. I see clearly. They're not meant for my eyes.

My face is his wife's face. My body is his wife's body.

Ikari-kun wondered what his father's intentions were.

If Commander Ikari is the one who made me, I thought, then who made the Fifth? Whose body does he have?

We were the same. That I felt. Whether he'd been reborn like I had, whether he'd been made in imitation of someone else, like I had—I didn't know.

But he did. He must've, I reasoned, or he wouldn't have said anything.

Why should there be someone the same as me?

Why should he look the same as me?

In my apartment, as night fell, I looked in the square mirror. I thought I could imagine the woman I was made to resemble. I touched my face.

And the hand I saw had stubby fingers and blubbery white flesh. It wasn't enough. Being modeled on that woman, whoever she was—it didn't explain what I saw, what I felt.

The Fifth thought he knew what I was.

That's why I went to him to find out.

I visited Nerv the next morning. The Fifth had no lodgings of his own. The major has assigned him temporary quarters in the facility, like those of the defense teams that patrolled the halls. I knocked at his door.

Silence.

I knocked again.

Silence.

I puzzled over that. He was new to the city. Where would he go by himself? Where would he go that Ikari-kun and I weren't there, too? Not another test or synchronization procedure, none that I knew of.

I pushed on the door, and it gave way. The Fifth must've felt he had nothing to fear by someone else being there. The room was unadorned. There was a cardboard box in the corner, holding a collection of compact discs: the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and Vivaldi. The drawers he'd filled with identical white shirts and dark pants, seven sets in all. I hadn't come to that place wanting to know who that person was, only what he knew, but what I did see unnerved me. We had singular interests: he in Western music, I in biology. We put no value on clothing, so what we wore was the same all the time.

"My, am I intruding?"

It was him, the Fifth. He entered with that smile from before, the smile that held everything back.

"Or do I have it wrong, and it's _you_ who's intruding? Well, let me not be an inhospitable host, but please do remove your shoes. I think that's the custom here, is it not?"

I left my shoes on the mat beside his.

"Be at ease, First, I've been expecting you," he said. "Please, sit if you like. You wouldn't have come if you didn't have questions, yes?"

We sat together on the futon. With a bed right beside it, I surmised he preferred the floor, but I didn't ask—not then.

"Fascinating, aren't they—these people, this world?" he said. "They're capable of such great things. It all comes from knowledge, you know—the ability to use it and build on it to make great wonders. For having to choose between knowledge and strength, I confess I prefer the way these Lilin are, always dreaming and striving to create. If only they had the strength to make with their bodies what they use cranes and motors and pumps for instead. Then they would be truly godlike. I've truly enjoyed being among them, even if it's only for a short time."

"You speak as if separate," I said. "You're an observer of humanity, but not part of it."

"Naturally," he said, grinning. "I'm no more one of them than you are. That's what you're wondering about, isn't it? How we could be so similar? Well, I know you were involved in a bit of an accident. I see you're hardly the worse for it on the outside, but perhaps it's had an effect on your memory? Yes, I see it has. Such a shame." He tilted his head. "Or is it someone else who's had an effect on your memory?"

This boy, the Fifth—he liked to talk. With his words, he hoped to impress and dazzle. I was not amused. "How are we the same?" I said.

He sighed. "So direct we are. I'm afraid I must beg your patience, First. The fullest explanation is a complicated one. Tell me: are you familiar with the work of Kubrick and Clarke?"

"Who?"

"I suppose not. A pity, really—they were visionary men. They imagined a world in which humanity reached for the stars and realized they were mere children. In the balance of things, they couldn't have come closer to the truth."

"Truth?"

"To capture that truth fully, we must start long ago, in a galaxy far, far away."

I blinked.

"No? I'm surprised with you, that you would partake so little of these children's achievements, but very well then. We will start with a time long past, but the galaxy is the same as the one we inhabit now. I know you've forgotten it, so forgive me if I'm too detailed. I said humans were children, and it is so. They, and all the life on this world, are the spawn of far older creatures, a race of beings whose name for themselves I can't hope to pronounce, not with this body. Let me say that they were intelligent, astoundingly so, but they were also frighteningly alone."

"You speak of aliens," I said.

"Ah, so you've heard the term!"

"This doesn't pertain to the question I asked," I said, rising.

"I assure you it does."

I put on my shoes. I opened the door.

"Haven't you felt like you were something else?" he said.

I stopped.

"That though you looked in the mirror and saw human hair, human flesh, there was something inside you, something different, something that would make a sane man tremble and scream?"

I stood in the doorway, my back to him.

"I know you don't remember, so to this point I've tried to be gentle, but it pains me too much to see you walking around thinking you're something you're not. What have they told you—that you're a clone? That you were made to bring someone back? Did they claim your memories would never return, that they were irrevocably lost? Some of that is true, the rest lies, but all of it is incomplete. Listen to me and don't be skeptical. They gave you a name, and I'll use it. Ayanami Rei, _sit down_."

This boy—he knew things he shouldn't have. I told myself it'd be reasonable to stay, if only to find out what he knew, but…

I sat, and the Fifth, with a smile, continued.

"Those aliens were the first. They were first because their world spun around two of the biggest and brightest stars, so great and hot that they burned with a penetrating blue hue. Compared to humanity, they were godlike creatures. They peered across the universe from their home and saw that the galaxy was devoid of life beyond them, and for that reason, they saw no point to venturing into space. They built up their planet to the point the that soil and water beneath their structures could no longer be seen. Tell me, First, can you imagine it? Can you see, in your mind, the great cities they built? The colossal spires that touched the sky?"

I closed my eyes, and I saw them. Layers of framework and walkways built upon each other. Towers pieced the sky, yet their foundations couldn't be seen through the thick maze of the city below. It was a world-city shining in pure white metal. The twin stars bathed the planet in a blue glow and gave each building a confused, double shadow.

"They were indeed great builders. They left no square centimeter of their planet untouched but left the cosmos as it was. Ironically, it was the cosmos that touched them instead. Somewhere near their star system, a giant star was in its death throes. It was a quickly-spinning star, and when it died, it released fantastic energies over a narrow swath of the galaxy. Such cataclysms occur throughout the universe every day, even now. Only rarely does this burst of energy find itself directed at a planet, let alone one that contains intelligent life. The first ones were hardy; they could survive those rays of death, though it made many sick and slew the old, the young, and the weak. Though the first ones lived on, their planet was dying. The great and many creatures that grew in the soil, swam through the seas, or flew through the air—all died or were irrevocably corrupted. Can you see it, First? A sky with no birds, an ocean with no fish? A place where the soil itself is inert and hasn't a trace of microscopic life? That was the world they woke up to."

I saw it clearly. The suns' rays were hot and deadly. The corpses of unthinkable creatures stained the white metal irrevocably. The stench of death was inescapable.

"They were always good mathematicians. It wasn't long before they realized they'd perish before they built the craft needed to save their civilization. They built great vessels, knowing each would hold too small a number—not enough could be saved, not enough would live on."

The vessels were giant, but so were they. They built those craft—great egg-shaped ships—with the last resources they could muster. Their people watched, knowing they had nowhere to go.

"They salvaged the souls of those who'd die. They created seven guardians to go with those souls as progenitors. Their race would fall, but the souls of their kin would survive in the new forms that the progenitors would create. The first ones called those seven _Seeds of Life_.

"They divided the Seeds into two kinds. Three would have the Fruit of Life and bestow on their creations the greatest strength and fortitude. The other four would carry the Fruit of Knowledge, and their children would be builders and thinkers. They'd live and die quickly, but with each generation, they would be more immense and great than they were before. That is the Fruit of which humanity is borne, but it wasn't the first gift to be bestowed on this world. You see, the first Seed to set foot on this world carried the Fruit of Life instead. That was Adam, and for a time, it was Adam's children, the Angels, who walked this land."

Not all of them walked. Some of them flew. Others rocketed to space and slept. Some of them were like humans, with arms and legs and faces. Others were purely geometrical, entirely round or with sharp edges and corners. They represented the gamut of what could be.

"But that time was short-lived. A second carrier, a _moon_ they called it, impacted this world by chance, and the Seed that arrived with it carried the Fruit of Knowledge. Never, the first ones had decreed, should the two Fruits mix. Such would make a being like the first ones themselves—unspeakably intelligent and mighty, to be sure, but they also feared such a creature would be arrogant and think itself perfect, leading to the same catastrophe—by chance and hubris—that had befallen the first ones themselves. To protect against this, they sent with each Seed a Spear, so that if the Fruits were in danger of mixing, the Spear would subdue a Seed, and all would be well. The second Seed, in the black moon, happened upon Earth by accident. Its Spear was destroyed. The impact, some think, created the gray rock that revolves around this world today. With only one Spear left, there was no other choice. It was Adam who was subdued, and the second Seed fostered life on this world—the creatures who are collectively _Lilin_, for the name of the Seed who bore them.

"You'd think humanity would be grateful for this turn, happy to be alive, but they weren't. So determined they are to achieve something higher than their existence, they disturbed Adam. They ripped the soul of Adam from the giant's body. They set off the cataclysm they call _Second Impact_. And that, First, is why we're both here, isn't it? To keep Adam's children from returning to their progenitor? The people here—they hold Adam's body in the place they call _Terminal Dogma_. Ikari Gendō—he hopes to make that body part of his own, but that isn't enough."

I shivered. The Fifth spoke of monsters, of aliens whose thoughts and motives a human mind could never understand, yet he recounted the tale like a living witness, a survivor, like the last of those who could know first-hand.

And I?

I opened my eyes. I told myself I'd imagined his tale after all. What I saw—it went with what he said. He was the one who put those thoughts into my mind. He was the one who knew things he shouldn't have.

"You're a child," I said. "Who would've told a child these stories?"

"I admit, some of it had to be told to me," he said. "After all, the Dead Sea Scrolls were meant to be a guide. Who would reasonably memorize them front to back? No, no, not everything I've told you is my own account, but most of it is. I know these things because this body used to be an empty shell. The people who sent me desired a vessel, a means to control something they couldn't understand. Maybe there's a real Nagisa Kaworu out there—who can say—but the soul those men imbued in this body came with memories of those days, memories they had no need or reason to erase." He smirked. "That's right, First. Don't let it surprise you, for as I said, we are the same. I knew what you were the moment I saw you, but unlike Seele, the man who created you had need of a blank slate."

He grinned. It was serene; it was chilling. I stood up, backing away, and he rose, too.

"You must excuse me, First. This conversation—watching your reactions—it's been very enlightening, but I must go. I have a date, you see, with Shinji-kun."

"Ikari-kun?"

"Indeed. I've spoken at length at him. He's very charming, once you get him out of his shell. I dare say he's a model for the Lilin to follow in that he's not afraid to admit his insecurities, his fears."

"What do you intend toward Ikari-kun?"

"It's not what I intend; it's what _he_ will intend toward me." He strolled past me, to the door. "I will commandeer Unit-02 and take it to Terminal Dogma. Your master, Ikari Gendō—he has a part of Adam's resurrected body. I've sensed that, but there is something far greater beneath us. The others meant to keep that from me, but they were misguided, foolish to think I wouldn't know what was so close. They will panic, and Ikari Gendō—he'll surely send his son to stop me."

"Why would you do this?"

He shook his head. "Have you listened to nothing I've said? I do it because I have the soul of Adam, and it is my destiny to live and reunite with his body, whatever is left of it. Though it would destroy these people, I should think you'd want to do the same."

"I'm not like you."

"No? So you like that body, then? You like being a pale imitation of someone else? Or maybe you think to make it your own? Don't make me laugh, First. It's impossible. If you think me cruel for saying so, just remember—I say this out of brotherly love."

"I'll stop you before you reach the cage," I said.

He backed out of the doorway, into the hall. "Will you?"

I stepped forward, but a barrier blocked my way. It was multicolored, translucent, and it shimmered with an eight-sided pattern.

"This, dear sister, is an AT field," he said. "It is formed from the light of the soul. It keeps us separate and distinct from others. The Lilin don't know how to project it. It may not even be in their power, but if you wish to stop me, then break this barrier. Look into your soul. There, you'll find the knowledge, the strength. There, you'll know that all I've said today is true. If you don't find that within yourself, then I suppose this is goodbye."

He walked away, whistling, and I made no move to stop him. The AT field in the doorway held even as he left it behind. He trapped me there.

I didn't believe him. It was unthinkable. Impossible. I'd been made to serve a purpose. I'd been made in imitation of a woman to look like her, to replace her when she was gone. Even so, I wasn't Ikari-kun's mother, and I wasn't whatever the Fifth insinuated I was. I wasn't some alien creature, caged and imprisoned in this body. That creature had a purpose, too, but I refused it. It couldn't be.

I touched the AT field, and it reacted. Like waves on a pond, the octagonal pattern flickered and sparked. I slipped off a shoe and pressed the heel against the rainbow wall. The barrier turned it away with no visible change. It reacted to me, to my flesh, to my skin, and nothing else.

What would it mean, I wondered, for an alien to be forced into a human body? Its shape would be a lie. Its eyes would see falsely, in colors distorted from its true sight. If it were a large creature, like Eva, then the human body would contain its strength and bottle it into a harmless package. It would be malleable, controllable. It would be like a jar on a kitchen counter, holding something precious until the right time—the time it was needed.

The time of its purpose.

I pressed both hands on the barrier. I pushed. Lights flickered. The concrete walls crumbled and fell. I obliterated that doorway. I shoved the AT field aside. I walked beneath sparks from severed cables. They couldn't hurt me.

The sirens blared. People ran through the halls. I moved against them. They, so desperate to preserve their own lives—they were frightened. I saw it in their eyes. I felt it. The Fifth had made good on his word. He took Unit-02 into the shaft to Terminal Dogma. I stood at the edge, by the cables and pulleys, as technicians lowered Ikari-kun and Unit-01 down to fight him. I stepped out, over the abyss, and I floated. I floated down, toward the lowest level.

We descended further—the Fifth and Ikari-kun below, and I behind them. They fell into a sea of red. The Fifth commanded Unit-02 with his thoughts, forced it to fight Ikari-kun. There, he barricaded himself. The Fifth projected a wall to protect his soul, an AT field much stronger than the pathetic thing he used to block the door. I felt it. I touched it.

And with an earth-moving crack, I shattered it.

But the Fifth didn't care. He flew above the sea of LCL. He floated down before a red cross. He was right: they held the body of a white giant. They crucified it. They subdued it. The Fifth stared at the white, blubbery hunk of flesh in awe.

"Adam, our mother," he said, looking upon its purple mask. "Must those borne of Adam return to it, even at the cost of destroying humanity?" He frowned. "No, this is wrong! This is…"

A mistake. In coming to that place, he'd made a mistake. That seven-eyed monster, the one with human legs sticking out of its own—I knew what it was. It wasn't Adam. It was the _other_, and the Fifth knew it, too. If he'd been deceived or was simply wrong, it didn't matter. Ikari-kun defeated Unit-02, and the Fifth, instead of attacking, congratulated him. Ikari-kun took the Fifth in the Eva's hand, but the Fifth didn't resist.

"I was fated to live forever, even if it means destroying humanity as a result," he said. "But, I can choose to die, to be or not to be. It makes no difference. My death is the only true freedom."

They were empty words, lost on Ikari-kun. "What are you talking about?" he said. "Kaworu-kun, I don't understand a word you're saying! Kaworu-kun…"

Why he held such attachment, such compassion for a deceiver, I couldn't say. He hesitated, but the Fifth urged him on.

"They're my last words," said the Fifth. "Now, erase me. Erase me or be erased instead. He who escapes the cataclysm and seizes the future is the only one who matters, and you're not the one who must die."

He looked up. He knew I was watching. He met my gaze, for I watched them from above.

"You all need the future," he said. "Thank you. I'm glad to have met you."

Ikari-kun held him there. He waited. He agonized over it, but in the end, there was only one outcome.

The Fifth's head splashed in the pool of LCL, and that was the end of him.

They raised Unit-01 by rope and pulley much as they'd lowered it. I floated after it, listening to Ikari-kun's sobs for the whole journey. The blood of the fifth had stained Unit-01's armor. By the Commander's side, I watched the technicians wash it off. The Commander knew what I'd done. "There are cameras in every hallway," he said. "Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

I said nothing.

"It's no matter," he said. "It's for the best. The final Angel is dead. The time you were made for soon approaches. After that…"

" 'After that'?" I said.

He looked at me strangely. He left me there, on the catwalk. He must've known there was nothing else to say. What would happen then? I'd be allowed to die? To do what I wished? The person who made me would never think of what came after. He was fixed on his desire, and in doing so, he caused fear and pain. The people on the surface, in the city that used to be, had lived in terror. The pilot of Unit-02 had a broken mind, fleeing from the real world.

And Ikari-kun?

He sat on the catwalk, still in his piloting suit. He curled into a ball and wouldn't move from that place.

"He was an Angel," said Ikari-kun. "But he was a friend, too. That's not right. It shouldn't have been him. It shouldn't have been him…"

I stood over him, saying nothing, but he noticed me. He glanced up and flinched.

"What do you want?" he said. "What were you doing there? How did you get there?" He trembled. "I don't know what you are anymore."

He cried again. All comfort and warmth had abandoned him; he wanted nothing else from this world. It's not just me who wishes to die, but we're trapped. They by what they want yet cannot have, and I…

What am I?

Before the giant on the cross, the Fifth had said it. "No, this is wrong!" he'd said. "This is Lilith!"

_Lilith_.

I'm trapped by it, the black spot in my mind.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Realizing you're not even who or what you thought you were is a terrifying thing, and I've tried my best to convey that feeling, that hopelessness, here. The background on the First Ancestral Race is something very interesting to me, something not at all touched on in the original series but heavily featured in supplemental materials. Exploring that mythos is something I'd like to do in a sequel story.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves; there are two chapters to go. With the final Angel dead, we move toward Third Impact, where Rei will make her choice for the fate of humanity and herself. Check out my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com for updates and in-depth commentary on each chapter, or follow me on twitter, [at]muphrid15.


	9. Before Impact

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

* * *

**Before Impact**

_Chapter Nine_

I couldn't sleep.

The moonlight came through my window. I'd left the curtains open.

If I fell asleep, there was no guarantee I'd still be in that body. I feared it. I feared I'd awaken and find myself slumped on the red cross, with nails through my palms and blobs of human legs sticking from my own. When I closed my eyes, I thought I'd open them and be the giant instead. I might never remember being something separate.

The Fifth had taken something from me. Before, I'd carried the bottle of pills, but the solace it offered was empty. I could die again and spite the man who used to wear those thick glasses, but the black spot in my mind couldn't be erased. Even if I died, _it_ would still be there.

I hated that man.

He brought me back over and over. He gave me a false soul and another's body. I had a name. _Ayanami Rei_. That name was the only thing I could call my own, yet it belonged to two others as well. How could we all be Ayanami Rei? Because people looked at us and thought us the same?

Did something real connect us to make us the same?

Our name. Our body. Our soul. All fake. I would die, but the giant would keep living. That's why I hated that man.

I dropped his glasses to the floor and crushed them beneath my heel.

I didn't know it at the time, but that night and that day, all humanity suffered. The bonds between people had become painful, and so long as people walked the Earth separately, not knowing the feelings in each other's hearts, those bonds would continue to pulse and sting. I didn't see that first-hand, but I know it, for the minds and hearts of people have been opened to me. I know whom they covet. I know what they dream of. I know what hurts them, and though I was never there to see it, I wish to write a little of what the people near me did in those last hours.

It started with Ikari-kun. The night before, the Fifth had died, and Ikari-kun and Major Katsuragi went to the crater lake. Like with me, the major told him the only value was in people who chose to live, that those who sought death deserved it. Ikari-kun didn't accept that. He cried over the Fifth, whom he thought human, whom he called his friend. Though the major left him, Ikari-kun stayed at the new shoreline until morning.

"I should've been the one who died," he said, staring at his reflection in the water. "It should've been me, not Kaworu-kun. It should've been me."

He walked the shore, dipping his hand in from time to time. Where the drop-off was steep and the water rose to his elbow with ease, he kneeled. The nails and jagged metal in the earth he disregarded. He kissed the dirty, debris-laden water, and he went further. He shut his eyes and immersed himself up to his neck in the lake. _I mustn't run away,_ he thought. _I mustn't run away! _

But his lungs burned and tightened. He coughed, and air bubbled upward around him. No matter how familiar the feeling was of breathing in fluid, his body rejected the water. He came up and spat out the lake water, his wet hair falling over his eyes.

"Is that it?" he asked his reflection. "I'm so weak…I don't even have the will to finish it?"

He opened and closed his fist. He dunked himself in again. Two times, three times—he lost count after that. When he could stand no more, he sat and let his tears mix with the sludge, knowing it would make no difference.

And the major who left him there? She sat at her desk, blinds closed. With folders and photographs strewn over her bedroom, she placed her sidearm beside the phone. There was a message on the answering machine. She pressed _play_.

"Katsuragi," the message began, "it's me. I've probably put you through a lot of trouble by the time you hear this. I'm sorry. Tell Ritchan I'm sorry, too. And, since I've bothered you so much anyway, there's this flower I've been growing—I'd be grateful if you watered it for me. Shinji knows where it is. Katsuragi, the truth is with you. Go forth with no doubts. If I ever see you again, I'll say the words I should've said eight years ago. Bye."

The major rose. Her pistol in hand, she walked out, into rest of the apartment. There was a phone in the kitchen. It too had a message.

"Katsuragi," the recording began again, "it's me…"

One door was closed, a message taped to it, forbidding all entry. The piece of paper was torn. The bottom half sagged. Another door the major opened. There was a bed and a desk but no one inside.

"…And, since I've bothered you so much anyway, there's this flower I've been growing…"

She cursed. She stomped her foot. She ran her gingers through her hair, mumbling to herself.

"Katsuragi, the truth is with you. Go forth with no doubts…"

She ejected the clip and left it on the kitchen counter, but even with the empty gun in her hand, she found no will to move, not for a while. Distanced from the people around us, people break down. I've seen this everywhere—at the lake with Ikari-kun, in the major's apartment, and in other places, too. In the Nerv pyramid, a woman with brown hair walked the halls with a clipboard in her arms. She strolled by a dozen cells with barred windows. She stopped at one and peered inside, but the room was dark.

"Um, _sempai_?" she said. "Are you in there?"

"What is it, Maya?" asked the prisoner.

"I just wanted to see how you were holding up," said Lieutenant Ibuki. "Everyone's a bit anxious, now that the Angels are gone."

"You should be," said the prisoner. "Adam's offspring may be finished, but matters are hardly concluded."

"Eh?"

"Go now, Maya. You're wasting your time here."

"But…" The lieutenant fingered the bars. "I thought you must be lonely, staying in the dark like this."

"The dark and the light are no different; go away. Leave me."

The lieutenant jerked away, as if the cold metal had burned her. She left with a quickened step, but the prisoner made no move to watch her go. She stood in the dark, her clothes neatly folded, her back to the door. She closed her eyes and touched two fingers to her knee. They traced a line up her thigh, and she imagined. She thought instead a man with white gloves touched her there.

Then she remembered. "A strong-willed woman," a voice had said of her. "It stands to reason Ikari would keep you close."

"However," said another, "the one who presented you to us is none other than Ikari-kun himself!"

She curled her fingers. She scratched herself in a sharp, quick motion, and let the blood from the wound seep. She stood there, naked, in the dark, and let not the pain affect her. Even later, when her captors released her, in need of her knowledge and skills, she'd never forget.

Humans inflict pain on each other, for they're unwilling to understand each other's hearts. With bullets, grenades, and bombs they maim each other. They kill each other. It's been true throughout human history, and that day was no different. Men from outside, fearful of the Commander, sent soldiers in armor and helmets to invade. They blasted open the Geofront, destroying the remnants of the city above. They swarmed the halls of the pyramid, shooting those who fought back and even those who did not.

And I?

I went to Nerv. I went down, to the graveyard of Eva. I folded my clothes. I swam with my sisters. I floated with the parts that were me but not me. Doctor Akagi had slain the others. There would be no more like me, no more creatures pretending to be human. Once I was gone, there would only be the giant on the cross. Though once I feared living, I understood. All the people I'd met found living an empty thing. They yearned for the dead. They ran away from pain. They shuttered themselves in their own bodies, sleeping with their eyes open. That tank was proof of it. Those lifeless things had been disassembled because they were hated. They were envied. They represented something else.

Ikari Yui. I'd heard her name. I wasn't her.

Lilith. I'd heard that name, too. I wasn't that thing.

Who was I? I was Ayanami Rei. I thought I welcomed death, but that day, I stood before the tank of decaying body parts. I hesitated. I was afraid. If I died, everything I'd been would disappear into the black spot that hid in my mind. That thing I couldn't understand. That thing wasn't human. What I'd become if I gave in to it I couldn't know.

But I felt it.

I felt it calling to me, just as the Fifth had felt it. I felt the agony of people as they died all around. In each victim's last moments, they yearned for what they most cherished—the touch and comfort of another.

"Rei."

It was him. That man. The man I hated.

"So you're here after all," he said. "The promised time has come. Let's go."

I hated him, but I went with him. He wanted to take me to the giant, and I succumbed to its pull.

In the hallways of Nerv, the lights had gone or flickered. The Commander led me by the hand. Distant gunshots rang out, and the cries of the dead were silenced. The Commander drew from his coat a pistol, and as we turned the corner he didn't hesitate.

"TEW-TEW!" went the pistol. "TEW-TEW!" The Commander darted back to safety, and the hail of bullets wasn't far behind. They dented the wall and ricochetted.

"Rei," he said. "They have the advantage."

And I knew what he wanted. If the people of Nerv wouldn't kill them, they'd only die some other way. That is the truth of human existence, and I delivered it. I walked out, before the soldiers. They shot their rifles, but it was futile. Lead, copper, steel—all were meaningless against the AT field, the light of my soul. The soul I'd been given shined brighter than theirs.

In vain the soldiers fired until the barrels of their rifles ran hot. Some of them looked at me and knew fear. They retreated, but one pulled the black cannister from his belt. He yanked the metal pin free and rolled the grenade at my feet, taking cover around the corner.

With the AT field I pushed it back to him and let the blast, the fireball, tear down the walls.

"Very good, Rei," said the Commander, following behind me. "Very good."

We walked by the crater in the floor. We stepped over the broken, mangled bodies. With me to protect him, the Commander feared nothing. Others in the complex weren't so lucky. The soldiers blasted their way through the facility. They jarred cables and wiring from the ceiling loose. The wounded they approached and shot in the head at point-blank range to make sure no one survived. They would accept no prisoners. They'd kill even the unarmed, the weak. They'd kill the pilots. I was safe, though no one but the Commander knew it, but the others were not. Ikari-kun sat beneath a metal stair to the sounds of gunfire. He neither ran nor hid nor begged for his life. He sat motionless as Special Self-Defense Force soldiers put a gun to his head.

"Sorry," said the shooter. "It's nothing personal, kid."

And at that moment, Ikari-kun thought it'd be fine, that the pain would last only briefly before he was set free. No one was there to help him. No one else understood. I couldn't. The major wouldn't. The pilot of Unit-02 he'd begged to awaken, but she sat in her hospital bed, eyes open, even as he'd found her too exciting to resist. The only comfort he could savor he'd given and taken himself.

BANG-BANG-BANG! He'd given up on the major, but she hadn't forsaken him. She dashed down the corridor and slew the lead gunman. She ran headlong into the remaining two, shooting one and kicking the other to the wall. With crazed ferocity, she stuck her gun under the last man's chin and grinned.

"Nothing personal here, either!"

BANG!

The soldier's blood sprayed in a cone on the wall.

"Now, let's go," said the major, breathing heavily. "To Unit-01."

Ikari-kun looked upon the scene of the massacre. The fallen bodies were inanimate; blood trickled from their wounds. He stared, but the major took him away. She dragged him by the wrist. He walked, head down, his feet heavy. So much death, yet he felt nothing. He was glad for them. It wasn't the rage of vengeance. He envied the bodies and wished he could lie among them, yet he knew he hadn't the courage. He'd tried and failed. The major didn't understand. If he grabbed at her gun, he'd never wrestle it from her. She'd hesitate to kill him, even if his feeble existence posed a threat.

She led him to a parking garage and sat him at the end of an empty space. She tuned into a radio, listening, plotting, and thinking. Why did she go on? he wondered. Why did she care? That person most special to her was dead. Why should she persist?

"This is bad," said the major. "They're trying to stop you from reaching Unit-01. We're running out of time. This is it, Shinji-kun."

He didn't move.

"Will you run away again, or will you pilot Eva?" she asked.

He scorned her words. There was no real choice in either. Nowhere he knew of would be far enough away. Nothing good would come of piloting; his experiences, the pain he'd suffered, had proved that.

"If you keep sitting there doing nothing, you're as good as dead!"

She didn't understand. I wasn't there to understand. He called out to the only person left who might. "Help me, Asuka," he whispered. "Help me…"

"You'd hide behind that girl's skirt? That's the worst thing you can do—quit while the job is half done! Now, get up!"

She took his wrist, but his knees dragged. He hung from her, limp like a doll.

"Move it!"

"I don't want to," he said. "Let me die. I don't want to do anything else."

"Stop talking like a selfish little brat! You're still alive, aren't you? Get up and do something—then you can die!"

She threw him into the passenger seat of her car, and they drove. On a one-lane track, they passed the heads and skeletons of Eva, and the major explained why Ikari-kun should try to save himself, if only for a while.

"They plan to start Third Impact…," she said. She explained to him, at last, the truth of things: that humans were born from the white giant on the cross, that man had brought about Second Impact to stave off a greater disaster. The Eva Series and Unit-01 would be their tools to start a new age, and it was up to Ikari-kun to stop them. He held, for the last time, the fate of the world on his shoulders.

But it meant nothing to him. Ikari-kun rode on in silence. He buried himself in his arms and knees, a shell to keep the world out, for it was nothing but pain to him, even as surprising words came over the radio.

"Eva Unit-02's been activated!" said the lieutenant. "Asuka's okay! She's alive!"

Ikari-kun flinched, but he dared not come out. Even so, for a moment there was hope.

There was hope because the pilot of Unit-02 had found something. Submerged within the Geofront lake, she'd been protected in her Eva. In the darkness of her heart, she communed with the Eva's soul. It was her mother's soul. The mother hadn't abandoned her daughter after all. As long as the Second had thought herself an adult, as long as she'd asked others to look at her and hated them when they didn't, a mother who protected her was the one person she could embrace and love.

And through that love she reclaimed her fighting strength. Unit-02 awakened from the lake and laid waste to the helicopters, tanks, and ships of the Special Self-Defense Force. Empowered with the joy they'd found in living, she and the Eva projected the light of their souls. Against the AT field, shells and warheads stood no chance.

So the soldiers pulled back. They blasted a hole in the roof of the Geofront and made way for a more formidable weapon: the nine mass-produced units of the Eva Series. Controlled by dummy plugs of the Fifth's kind, they encircled Unit-02. They had unlimited power. Unit-02, with its umbilical cut, would last little more than three minutes and half of another—less than thirty seconds she had to kill each of her foes, she realized.

She hardly hesitated to strike. She bashed the head of her first foe, held its body over her Eva's and cracked her enemy's bones. She bathed in her foes' blood and hurled the corpses of the defeated as weapons, too.

For the moment, there was hope, but it was fleeting. Though the major promised Sōryū help in Ikari-kun, the Self Defense Forces ambushed them. The major shielded Ikari-kun from gunfire, rushing him to safety and sealing the door behind them, but a single shot pierced her torso, coming out the other side.

It was the first time that day Ikari-kun stood upright on his own two feet, relying on no one for support. The major could no longer bear his weight. She slumped against a wall, coolly assuring him. "Don't worry," she said, smiling. "It's not as bad as it looks."

But that wasn't so. The major, whom he'd run from, who'd pushed him to live lay dying herself. From that moment, he'd be on his own. No one else would prod or console him, and the choices he'd made, even if he felt he had no options, were ones he'd have to live with. With a kiss on the lips, she pushed him into the emergency elevator. Her muscles failed. Not knowing if Ikari-kun would heed her, she crumpled, sprawling on the floor in a pool of her own blood. She called to Inspector Kaji. She called to her pet, Pen-Pen. Her eyes drooped. A bomb wrecked the level, tearing her apart.

That was the end of hope. The major died. The pilot of Unit-02, though ferocious and fearless, slew only eight of her foes. It was the ninth that doomed her, for its blade was a copy of the Spear of Longinus in disguise. Unit-02's AT field collapsed. Its batteries failed. The Spear pierced one of the Eva's eyes, and as her mother's body bled, so too did the pilot's. The defeated Eva Series units returned to life, maimed and bloodied though they were. They eviscerated Unit-02, and the pilot felt every tear of the intestines, every slash on the organs, as if they were her own. Crazed and bloodthirsty, she pulled on the controls, over and over, swearing her revenge. "I'll kill you," she muttered. "I'll kill you; I'll kill you; I'll kill you!"

On the power of her rage, the pilot willed Unit-02 back to life. Though crippled, it reached for the sky.

And eight more Spears struck it down, splitting its arm in two. The Eva died. The pilot died.

It was more than the end of hope, for Ikari-kun listened to her screams over the radio. The Self-Defense Forces had encased Unit-01 in bakelite. He was helpless within and without.

That was the time the Commander and I reached Terminal Dogma, but we weren't the only ones there. Doctor Akagi, freed from her prison to protect the Magi, greeted us both from the edge of the LCL pool.

"I've been waiting for you," she said. She rose calmly and removed the revolver from her pocket.

This act was be the culmination of her betrayal, her hatred. The man who'd used her would die and never see his goal attained. It was only fitting. It was only fair. The pulsing scratch on her thigh demanded it. Her mother demanded it. Why the older Akagi had died the doctor couldn't know, but she was sure it had to do with that man. Everything had to do with that man, and just as she'd been taken in by him, so too would she take him with her.

"Mother," she said, clutching the controller in her pocket, "let's end it together."

She pressed the button, closing her eyes.

And there was nothing.

There was nothing.

She knew that was wrong.

The flashing red warning on the controller's screen bore it out. Magi Casper, her mother's womanly impression, had denied her request.

"Mother!" she cried. "You'd choose your lover over me?"

But the Commander—he never flinched. He drew his pistol and leveled it on her while her guard was down. "Akagi Ritsuko-kun, truly…"

She stiffened.

"I needed you."

Her heart skipped a beat, but irrevocably, the thought of his touch and his earnest words had been forever tarnished. There could only be in her mind the thoughts of me beside him, of him sending her, naked and foolish, before the Committee to be confronted with how naïve she'd truly been.

"Liar," she said.

BANG! The Commander shot, and the doctor's body fell backward, into the reservoir.

I watched her die, too.

I looked up, at the cross with the white giant. I felt the pull from that being. It knew what death was. It saw life acting against life. It sensed how the walls between souls had made human existence miserable and lonely. That man, the Commander—he was lonely, too.

He showed me his ungloved hand. An eye of something had been grafted to his palm. "I've already become one with Adam," he said. "Only through the forbidden union of Adam and Lilith can I see Yui again."

The giant's presence overwhelmed me. My arm detached from my body, splattering on the floor.

"We're running out of time," he said. "Your AT field won't hold its shape much longer. Let's begin, Rei. Lower your AT field, the barrier to your heart. Make our imperfect souls one again. Reject this unneeded form. Merge all our souls into one and, in doing so, bring me to Yui's side."

The man who wouldn't accept death—he was miserable, too. Humanity had become a race of frightened, lost souls. I sensed it. The giant sensed it.

He put his hand through my breast, and I didn't resist. He'd make me into nothing. He'd make the giant into nothing. I thought that was what I wanted. I thought that would do.

Until I heard it—Ikari-kun's voice.

Rising from the pyramid, Ikari Yui had broken free. She possessed Unit-01, and Ikari-kun rode inside it, but to save Sōryū, he was too late. He looked upon the wreckage, on the Mass-Produced Eva that chewed on Unit-02's insides.

And he screamed.

He screamed, and I heard it—no, I felt it. The Commander was in pain, but he'd caused as much or more. It was humanity, through Ikari-kun, that demanded an end to their suffering. This experiment millions of years in the making had gone on long enough. An isolated, separate existence was painful. Many had died that day, and in doing so, they affirmed it. People like Ikari-kun demanded relief. The Commander wasn't interested in that.

But I could be, if I were willing to give up what I was. I could live for a few more minutes as Ayanami Rei and see the Commander's dream come to fruition, or I could give up that name and my body to save humanity from itself. I'd save Ikari-kun that way. I'd make it so he wouldn't have to scream or cry anymore.

All it'd take, I realized, was a choice of my own making.

I looked the Commander in the eye. I closed the hole he made for himself; I took the embryo of Adam into me and said it.

"I'm not your doll."

He recoiled. "But why?"

"Because I'm not you," I said.

My arm regrew. It bubbled and reformed like it'd never been gone. I turned away from him; I floated up, and the giant's seven eyes followed me. There was still hope after all, just no hope in living like this for people. I looked upon the giant and hoped:

That it would feel the same as I had.

That it would do as I'd wanted.

Neither of these could I be assured of, but I put those doubts aside. This, I realized, was my ultimate fate—not to die again and again but to return to nothing and let the giant be me instead. As long as a fraction of what I'd been remained in it, I could be satisfied.

"I'm home," I said, and its pull overcame me. It spoke to me in a language without words, in pictures without colors or shapes. The impression it gave me I couldn't mistake.

_Welcome home,_ it said.

I sank into its flesh, becoming one.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

I struggled with this chapter, as unlike the others, there isn't a lot of in-between time to insert new material, and conversely, a lot of the on-screen events as depicted in _End of Evangelion_ are critical to understanding Rei's thought process and decision-making. So, in this sense, I felt compelled to break my rule on rehashing events to an extent. Without Asuka dead and Shinji screaming, you really don't get a feeling for why Rei makes her choice at all.

Check out my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com for more extensive thoughts on this issue and commentary, or follow me on twitter, [at]muphrid15, for writing updates and other points of interest.


	10. During and After

"**Before and After," by Muphrid.** After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.

**Note:** this is a double update. Please be sure to read chapter nine, "Before Impact," prior to this concluding chapter.

* * *

**During and After**

_Finale_

I'd feared the giant would overtake me. I'd thought its mind incomprehensible, but I was wrong. The giant had lived for billions of years. It'd made a lonely journey and spawned life because that it'd been told to. The First Ones had created it to fulfill that goal. It, like me, was something made. It's true: the giant's mind _is_ incomprehensible. The only thing more difficult than understanding how it sees and thinks is to explain that instead. I cannot. With words that humans will understand, that fit on this piece of paper, I cannot. The giant's mind is my mind. The giant's body is my body. It took me within itself. It took my experiences and made them its own.

That's why I know the things I've written here.

That's why I've seen things I couldn't have seen.

I've been in the minds of people. I've been in their hearts. I know everything they've felt and yearned for.

There is no Lilith anymore.

There is no Ayanami Rei anymore.

There is only me.

I am both. I am neither.

I am the god that brings humanity's pained existence to an end.

I am everywhere and nowhere. Only the speed of light and the shape of space limit what I see. I am. I was. I will be. I am in the past and the future. I see the First Ones. I understand their fears. They knew something like me would glimpse everything about them—their hearts, their minds, their flesh. They feared not my pride. They knew, against me, they could never defend themselves.

Should I hate them? Should I hate _him_, and—in doing so—resent my own existence?

I peered into the past. I glimpsed myself. I saw a woman choke a child until its little body went limp in her hands. I saw a girl emerge from the orange fluid of that tank I know. She walked between her apartment and the pyramid below for many months. She communed with the soul of a synthetic being and shied away, over and over, and when she touched it and it touched her, the rage inside the Eva wounded her. It cracked her bones.

That's when she met the boy, and the other girl came soon after. Through them, she glimpsed humanity: its indecisiveness, its flaws, its anger, and its loneliness. Loneliness stuck with her. She knew it on her last day. A creature invaded her mind; it forced open her heart, and she cried. She sacrificed herself. It was her wish to be one with that boy, but she knew she couldn't. She brought the enemy within herself. She pulled the lever and looked to the sky. I think she remembered something, but I can't bring myself to touch her heart and know. I visited her apartment, watching from the window as an explosion shook the foundations. In the hours that followed, men in black suits and glasses broke into her room. They scoured the drawers. They looked under the bed. They ripped the pages from her spiral notebook and packed it into her bag, content to take her memory as well as her life.

But that's fine. I can go back, and I have. I've seen those pages. I've read them at the foot of her bed. I don't remember being her, but I can read and see. I know that, with her last breath, her loneliness was never sated.

That is the fate of humanity—to seek joy and love in others and be rebuffed. I've seen it everywhere: in myself, in the pilot of Unit-02…

In Ikari-kun. He gave up on finding comfort in this world, separated from people, so I went to him. I grew. I merged with the body of the giant, and the giant's body became mine. It took the form and shape of the woman I'd been made to resemble, and it grew. I grew. I towered over the islands of Japan, and for a moment, I lost myself.

Until Ikari-kun said my name.

I took him within me. I took him inside. I brought the souls together of ones he loved: the major, the pilot of Unit-02, and my own. It was the Second Child he yearned for most. He begged her to support him, to be with him, but in the landscape of his mind, she rejected him. It was then he wished to kill her, to end this world.

I am only the instrument of his wish.

I said it before: I am everywhere and nowhere. Past and future have blended together. I peer into the souls of humanity. I know what men and women yearn for. Even the husband who thinks himself happily married harbors unvocalized desires. He may want more control over money. He may fantasize about different women or techniques for the bedroom. There is something he would embrace to escape from reality. I know this because I've done it. I've looked into people's hearts. I showed them what they wanted, and invariably, they acquiesced.

It started with Lieutenant Hyūga.

He was a student at university when he met her—the person who was most special to him. It was an address, a recruitment campaign, and her superiors had chosen her to represent them. She was a model officer, they said, so on an improvised stage she strutted out, surrounded by the campus green. He watched her, curious, following every step. She wasn't a Self-Defence Force officer—they were his instructors. Their uniforms were different and not cut so short.

"I know you've been warned not to listen to too much that I say," she'd begun. "They're afraid I'll tell you we pay better, we have better privileges, and that the work is, well, that much more important and cool." She'd winked. "Oops, I guess I just said all of that. But it's all true. Special Agency Nerv is being formed, and we need you. All of you—you're on the road to officer candidacy, to careers in the Self-Defense Forces. It is an honor to protect our people in this time of uncertainty, and the SDF will offer that, but Nerv can offer you something more—it is a greater risk but a greater challenge. If you're up to it…" She'd winked again. "I'll be waiting."

He was first in line at her booth. The pamphlets she gave out were vague and uninformative. The secrecy of it appealed to him. "The truth of the matter is," she said, "I can't quite tell you how interesting this work will be. Why don't you sign up and see for yourself?"

He did. He forewent officer candidate school. He joined Nerv, hoping to work with her, and they did, for a time. She trained him herself, for she was his captain, and he followed her. On his first day, she walked him to and from their base on the River Elbe. She wasn't a technical specialist. Most of his qualification training came from others, but she oversaw his progress. She awarded him his lieutenant's insignia personally, presenting it to him in a small, felt-covered box as a lover would present a ring. At her apartment in Hamburg, she held a party for the new lieutenant, and this he awaited with great anticipation.

That's when he met the Other—the man with the ponytail and unshaven stubble. The captain and the Other bickered, but Lieutenant Hyūga understood quickly. He asked for a transfer back to Japan, and it was done. It wasn't for some time until the captain returned to Japan, but he knew the Other would soon follow. Nevertheless, he made himself her source into the inner workings of Nerv, so that together, they would uncover its secrets. When the Other died, he felt guilt for lusting after her—the captain she'd been, the major she'd become—but not for long.

I've seen the past. I know what lies in Hyūga Makoto's heart. I appeared to him as the major, Katsuragi Misato, and he was eager to touch me. He was elated to touch me. He yearned to be one with her. He knew, in his mind, it couldn't be the major, yet in the end, he embraced her. He embraced me. That's what made it easy to lower the wall to his heart. His soul exploded from his body, and only the LCL that made up his flesh remained.

That world overflowed with sorrow.

Its people drowned in emptiness.

Only yearning filled their hearts.

For Lieutenant Hyūga, it was yearning for Major Katsuragi. He convinced himself that aiding her quest for truth was enough. That was a lie. Given the opportunity to embrace her, he did so. His soul sought release, and I…

I gave it. I lowered his AT field, and his soul came rushing out.

He wasn't the only one. The recent dead and all the living I visited. I showed them what they wanted, and I took their souls to become one. The major I took. The doctor I took. The vice commander knew I was a specter of Ikari Yui, but he welcomed my touch, so I took him, too. I brought them all together, for Ikari-kun had shown me the nature of humanity. People were fated to hurt one another. It was a relentless cycle. It was inevitable. That's why it'd be better for them to come together. They would understand each other absolutely. They would know each other absolutely.

"But do you think Shinji-kun wants that?" asked a voice.

It was omnipresent. It was outside and in. It was the Fifth's voice. I'd brought him into myself. He was part of my body, as much the god the First Ones feared as I.

"The separate existences of human souls has damaged Shinji-kun's spirit greatly," he said. "There's no doubt of that. We can judge them as greater beings, and I think we should. It's fair to condemn the Lilin for what the most wronged among them has endured, but is it fair to impose a solution on them based on what that same child demands?"

"That is our purpose," I said. "In forming our union, we have the power to wipe away all life and begin anew."

"That is our prerogative, not our purpose," said the Fifth.

"You wish to see them separate again?"

"I wish them happiness."

"Why?"

"Because," he said. "I love Shinji-kun as much as you do."

Love.

The second had come to love that boy; her desires, like all humanity's, went unfulfilled. I am not the same as her, but I'd come to pity that boy. I sympathized with him. I thought, in his suffering, I saw a reflection of my own. Both before and after the day I was born again, we've been kindred spirits in pain. We reached to each other, seeking relief.

That's why I made for him a dream.

From the formless sea of souls, I set him apart. I made the voices of others quieter in his mind—quiet enough to let him hear and see what his own heart wanted, too. I took him from the black, and he…

He woke up.

It was quiet and dark in Ikari-kun's room, the small closet he'd inhabited in the major's apartment. The sheets were warm, and he turned on his desk light, rubbing his eyes.

"A dream, was it?" he said to himself. "No, that was—I don't know what that was."

He shoved those feelings and images away—thoughts of dying, of pain. They were a nightmare, and he was in something different. He was awake and home, in the major's apartment.

The major who kissed him. The major who lay bleeding in the hallway as he rode an elevator away from her.

He burst from his room and called out to her. "Misato-san!"

"Ahh, Shin-chan, I need help!"

He dashed into the kitchen area. He batted away plumes of smoke. The tile and cabinets flashed with the light of orange flames.

"Water, damn you!" said another voice. "Get water!"

He scrambled to the bath. He turned the faucet and filled a washbucket to the top. He ran back to the kitchen, the water sloshing and spilling out. He tossed the water blindly, into the thickest smoke.

"Not on me, too!"

"Sorry!" Ikari-kun stepped closer as the fires abated. "But what happened here?"

"Well," said the major, "it looks like Asuka and I had a bit of an accident."

The smoke cleared. In a charred frying pan, two blackened eggs were all that remained.

"Told you this was a bad idea," said Sōryū, wiping her hands clean from the char.

"As I recall, you were just as eager to give Shinji-kun a day off of cooking duty," said the major.

Sōryū stuck her tongue out, and the major did the same.

"It's okay, really," said Ikari-kun. "I'll cook breakfast and lunch; don't worry. That is…maybe if I can get some help cleaning this up."

The major made a mock gesture of salute. "I'm at your disposal, sir!"

"To do what?" said Sōryū. "Halfway fix the mess you helped make?"

"I want to eat well, so it's the least I can do." She patted Ikari-kun on the head, ruffling his hair. "Thanks for not freaking out on us there."

"Honestly," he said, "you should've asked me to help you instead of trying it yourself."

"Yeah," said the major, "you're probably right." She smiled slightly, taking a bucket of sponges and soap from under the sink. She got to work on the blackened pan without another word, but the intent of her deeds was clear.

_I care about your burdens. You don't face them alone._

With haste, Ikari-kun worked around the damaged stovetop, making a cold breakfast and boxed lunches for the three inhabitants of the major's apartment. The major, still in her jean shorts, bade the children goodbye from the kitchen as she toiled over the damage. "Don't forget to come to headquarters after school," she said. "Ritsuko's going to have a big surprise."

"The Angels are dead and gone; what more can there be for us to do?" asked Sōryū.

"You'll see," said the major.

Dressed for school, Sōryū and Ikari-kun slipped on their shoes at the doorstep. "I hope that was okay," said Ikari-kun. "It's really hard to make a traditional breakfast with the rice cooker burned, and then Misato-san forgot to get more soybeans _again_ and—"

"Stop making excuses," said Sōryū. "Just puff up your chest and say,'You'd better like it or else! ' Show some spine. I know you've got it in you."

Nodding politely, Ikari-kun looked down. His gaze settled between her hips and her shoulders.

Sōryū flicked him on the forehead with her middle finger. "Pervert!"

"Ow! Sorry."

_Don't be sorry all the time. Be bold. Look at me, and then be bolder than that._

He tilted his head, studying her.

"What?" she said. "Is there something on my—umph!"

He pinned her against the doorframe and covered her mouth with his own. He touched her elbow and curled his fingers around her arm.

"Hey!" said a distant voice. "Are you two still here?"

Sōryū shoved Ikari-kun away. She pulled on her uniform and stood upright. "We're going!" She dragged Ikari-kun from the doorway before the major's response could be heard. "Honestly, what were you thinking? Ask before you do that next time."

Ikari-kun stopped. "There'll be a next time?"

"Well…" Sōryū straightened her hair. "Seeing as you're so infatuated with me, I could hardly think you'd resist."

"Asuka…"

"Take a joke, will you? I mean, you know…" She crossed her hands behind her back, looking to the sky. "Don't you want there to be a next time?"

Ikari-kun's gaze softened. He smiled. "Yeah, I do."

Sōryū turned to him and leaned in. Their lips touched for two heartbeats, and before a surprised Ikari-kun, the Second Child pulled away with a wink.

"Looks like next time was just now," she said. "See, Shinji? You're pretty cool when you stop being so timid. It just took a little of my coaching to bring it out!"

Ikari-kun laughed to himself. "I like you, too, Asuka."

A touch of red came to her cheeks, but she composed herself. "You'll have to put that in writing. Leave it with all the other love letters. Don't worry, though. I won't throw yours away."

The sky was clear and blue. The sun was bright but not so hot as the Japanese knew it to be after Second Impact. It was warm but mild. A breeze blew in from the ocean, but between the skyscrapers and brick buildings, the winds swirled chaotically. Tōkyō-3 stood untouched, and it was Ikari-kun and Sōryū, along with office-workers and classmates, who walked the city's pristine streets.

At the door to room 2-A Ikari-kun and Sōryū arrived. The halls were quiet, and it was with trepidation that Ikari-kun slid open the door.

"Congratulations!"

With a banner and streamers, the children of their class greeted them. The Angels were dead. There was, it seemed, cause to celebrate.

"Wait, wait, wait a minute!" said Ikari-kun, holding up his hands to defend against the swarm of well-wishers. "We didn't do anything, honest!"

"What are you talking about?" said Aida-kun. "You're heroes, all of you!"

"It's about time someone recognized that," said Sōryū.

"Don't be so quick to take all the credit!" Through the crowd, a boy pushed through the crowd. With a white stripe on his shirt and two more down his pants, his uniform was outside regulations, but no one seemed to object. "As I recall," he said, "there were a couple others here who had a hand in saving the world, thank you very much."

"Tōji!" said Ikari-kun. "You—you're—"

"What's the matter? You look like you haven't seen me in years."

Ikari-kun waved him off. "It's nothing, really. I guess I'm just caught up in the moment."

The celebration continued. Sōryū began an impromptu speech. A group of girls handed out drinks, which the class representative insisted be cleaned up and disposed of before classes began. Ikari-kun made his way to the far side of the room and sat beside the only person who looked out the window.

"Ayanami," he said.

I faced forward.

"Why aren't you joining the party?"

I looked away.

"Are you…not sure what to do?"

I said nothing.

"Wait here," he said, and he pushed through the crowd of students again. He gathered various items: a cup of juice, a cone-shaped hat, a piece of plastic that makes noise when one blows through it. He put the cup in my hand, the hat on my head, and the noise-maker he left on the desk for me to try. "Stand up," he said. "Walk around. This party is for you just as much as me."

He took my hand, and I stepped from my seat.

In light of the last Angel's death, classes were canceled. The room was crowded with even more students who came to congratulate Ikari-kun and the others. There was talk of a festival, which Ikari-kun tried to object to, but to no avail.

When school hours ended and the celebration had yet to conclude, the major called Ikari-kun, reminding him that he and Sōryū were expected at Nerv. Obligingly, they left the party and descended the escalator to the pyramid. Inside, all the personnel were there to greet them and give their thanks. The lieutenants Hyūga and Aoba raised the control center in an ovation as the two children passed, but their destination, they learned, was the cage instead.

"Quite a lot of fuss for a place that has no purpose anymore," said Sōryū. "You'd think they'd be quick to dismantle this pyramid and everything in it. Ah well, it doesn't matter. If we can still pilot Eva from time to time and kick ass doing it, what could be better?"

"I'm afraid that will be quite impossible." In the control room overlooking the cage, Doctor Akagi greeted them. "The Evangelion have served their purpose. The Angels are gone. Should humanity use them in war with itself, all we've fought for will be lost."

"All the nations with an Eva are preparing for disarmament," said Lieutenant Ibuki, looking back from her console. "We can't let them be used for war."

"But you can't do that!" said Ikari-kun. "The Eva are alive! You can't just dismantle them like machines!"

"Yeah!" said Sōryū. "And I won't let you touch my Unit-02 without me saying so!"

"But that's why you've been brought here," said the doctor. "Unit-02 has already been destroyed."

"Impossible!"

"No, _necessary_. It was necessary, for the body couldn't be sustained for long without a functioning core—a soul inside to keep it intact. If we were to salvage that soul, the core had to be broken and the Eva allowed to die."

" 'Salvage? ' " said Sōryū. "Just what did you salvage?"

"Asuka."

There was a voice behind them. It belonged to a woman. Her dark hair came to her cheeks. A pair of nurses walked beside her. She wore a blue hospital gown, and she wheeled a stand of fluids with her, but her posture was upright and strong.

"Ma—" Sōryū stopped. "Do—do you know me?"

"Of course I do," said the woman. "You're my daughter."

"Mama!"

The mother and daughter Sōryū embraced gingerly, for it was the advice of nurses and doctors to be restrained. Even so, Ikari-kun watched them with envy.

"Asuka's real mother," he said to himself. "She was saved from Unit-02, so that…" His eyes widened. "Ritsuko-san, does that mean—?"

"Unit-01 is about to finish the process," said the doctor. "Why don't you go down there and look for yourself?"

Eagerly, Ikari-kun dashed through the halls, scampering down to the catwalk. It was there, with the chest of Unit-01 exposed, that the Commander stood, eying the red sphere of the core.

"Forgive me, Shinji," he said. "I thought that, without Yui, my life would never be whole. I put everything aside to be with her again, but I forgot what she'd want me to do. I forgot what I should've done."

A booming voice echoed through loudspeakers in the cage. "Initiating final extraction procedure…"

There were sparks and flashes of light. They blinded Ikari-kun, and he shielded his eyes with his arms to keep the glow at bay.

But when he looked again, the medical teams were rushing in. The core had shattered, and prone on the floor, naked in a pool of LCL, lay the woman whose face he scarcely remembered.

"Mother?"

As the medics draped her in a warming blanket, she smiled at him, but her true thoughts rang clearly in his mind.

_I've wanted to see you for so long, yet I can't help but think of what could've been. My dear Shinji, how can a mother tell her son that she wants to go to the stars, so her child will always be remembered? _

Ikari-kun stepped back, watching his father and mother embrace each other. The cage was awash with cheers and celebration, yet Ikari-kun couldn't find it in himself to smile.

"Is this not the world you wished for?" said a voice. "Is this not a place you could stay in?"

He stiffened. "Ayanami?" He peered over his shoulder. "No, not the same Ayanami. You—you're the real one."

I approached him on the catwalk. "Isn't this the wish of people?" I said. "To bathe in joy and satisfaction?"

"It is," he said, "but I feel…like it's not enough."

Further down, the Commander helped his wife to her feet. She walked unsteadily, laughing at herself, and even the Commander bore a slight smile.

"This world—it's everything I've wanted to see. My mother, my friends, Asuka—they support me now. They're here for me now. I don't feel alone, but still, it's like I hear them. I know what they want from me. Sometimes, that makes things easier, but other times, it feels like what seems happy is fake."

"You do hear them," I said. "You all hear each other and know each other's hearts. You know one another's desires, and you know what to do to appease them."

"And I can do that," he said. "When you know what other people want from you, it's easy. We won't want anything after a while. We won't know if what we want comes from ourselves or others after a while."

"That is Instrumentality."

"And there's no pleasure in it," he said. "Ayanami, I thought I wanted everyone to go away, but I was wrong. I want the chance be happy with them again. I want to see them all again. You've shown me that."

Walking gingerly, Ikari Yui approached her son. She reached out with her hand, yet Ikari-kun stood there, looking at her. No, he looked past her.

"Even if it means I won't know what they want," he said, "or what I want from them, even if that hurts me or hurts them—I want to see them again, for real."

Then in this dream there was no longer any point. I shattered that world. I sent it back to the abyss. Ikari-kun, the most broken person, the one who wished all humanity to die and no longer trouble him, had instead given humanity a reprieve. If he could welcome living separately again, with the walls of the heart dividing people, then everyone should be given that chance.

To do that, I would have to die, for I held the souls of humanity within me. Their only release would be with my death. I scattered their souls among the oceans. I let the sea of LCL within me bleed into those waters. I let Unit-01 and Ikari Yui's soul escape my body, and by the fading light of Earth's sun, the Eva floated into the cosmos. It would be an eternal testament to humanity and Ikari-kun, just as his mother wanted.

And Ikari-kun himself?

He emerged from the LCL sea. He floated to the deserted shoreline. He was the first and only for too long. In the emergence of the Black Moon, all that was left of Tōkyō-3 and the Geofront had gone. There was only Ikari-kun and the remnants of civilization. He used those remnants, and the sands there, to make markers for the dead.

He was alone.

So I looked deeper into the sea. I searched for someone whose heart I'd glimpsed. I found her, cowering, clinging to herself. She imagined herself in bandages, covering up wounds that had long since killed her. She was unwilling to let anyone else touch her and change who she thought she was.

"Leave me alone!" said Sōryū, calling into the dark. "You think you can play with my mind, First? You think you can make me like that stupid Shinji because you made me believe something that was a lie? That makes me sick!"

"You cannot lie to me," I said. "I've seen inside your heart."

"Then you know what that makes you? No better than that Angel!"

"You want people to pay attention to you," I said. "Ikari-kun, your mother—you want their eyes on you and only you."

"Mama?" she said. "That's right; Mama's here. You leave me alone with Mama. I don't want to hear any more from you!"

"Then you abandon Ikari-kun, and you'll never feel his eyes on you again."

I left her there, in the LCL sea. I visited from time to time. I questioned her. She was a stubborn one. She took long to understand herself. I don't know all that she experienced, trying to find what was important to her. What I do know is that I wasn't the only one encouraging her to go back.

"Mama," she called to the blackness as it faded away, "you'll come back for me again, won't you?"

She would. If she couldn't imagine herself in her heart, then I would help. That is what I've decided. That is the future I choose to live in. Ikari-kun and Sōryū met on the beach, with one half of a severed, petrified head watching them from a distance. It was my head—the physical head of the god I became to bring humanity together. To give mankind its reprieve, that being has to die. I have to die.

But it is as I have written it. I am everywhere and nowhere. Past and future are the same to me. To give Ikari-kun a future, I will die. That is the choice I make, and it is certain, but it doesn't limit me. That fate is my end, but I am not ended. I am the existence that gazes upon man as it struggles to better itself. Death is my release, and I welcome it. I treasure it—that I have chosen the time and place at which I'll die—but for now, I watch. Until my task is finished, I watch. There are billions of souls in the seas, and I've helped bring release to only two of them. Others will emerge of their own volition, but more will come with my help, my guidance, my aid.

And when I don't peer into the human heart, I watch Ikari-kun, just as I do with all mankind. I've watched him meet Sōryū and reunite with her. I'll watch them lead humanity to a new era and face a threat that corrupts from within and attacks from without. Those are longer stories, to be told another time, but I'm always watching. I see now that the Ikari-kun I know is different. He's changed, as people do change. I've gone back. I've seen the boy who walked the streets of Tōkyō-3, oblivious and wanting, as he dialed a public phone. He waited there for a guardian he'd never met, and for a moment, as the birds flew away, he saw me, and I saw him. He was uncertain then. He hoped his father or someone else would show him a place where he'd be wanted. The boy who lies on the beach now is different. He's damaged. He's tired. His experiences have changed him.

He's his own person now.

And so am I.

I write from an apartment, the one numbered _402_. Through the window, Tōkyō-3 is pristine and alive. The second Ayanami Rei sleeps in her bed, and in a notebook assembled from hers and mine, I write. I'm reminded of something I read—of the sacrifice a barrister made for a woman he loved and the man she favored instead. I didn't understand the barrister's deeds before, but now, I feel some kinship with him. I am the one who watches from afar, knowing that I go to my death.

Like the barrister, I'm at peace, for this is the fate—the purpose—I choose for myself.

**The End**

* * *

So ends "Before and After," and I must say, I've very much enjoyed this opportunity to explore an otherwise opaque character. I hope this story has proven intriguing for its insight into Rei and it's interpretation of her growth. In some ways, it seems all too common these days to see the evolution of an otherwise blank and stoic character, but I thought it'd be useful to see that process, to demystify _Evangelion,_ if only in a small way.

But that's not the only reason. Often times, I've heard people suggest that _End of Evangelion_ was Anno's revenge on dissatisfied viewers. I've never felt that to be so. It is a bleak apocalypse the characters have endured—of that there's no doubt—but I can't imagine that, after all these people have been through, they would emerge from that red sea without some glimmer of hope. It's up to Shinji and Asuka to start making a new future, and in my view of things, Rei will be there, too, watching over them, to make sure that it comes about. That's not to say it'll be easy, but that is the future I envision.

All that said, I'm not one to proclaim a brighter future for these characters without considering putting my money where my mouth is. I don't know when I'd get to it, but the plan is there, waiting in my fingertips to come out. It's a tale of humanity's rebuilding, of the temptations men will face in choosing to live and interact with each other. That pressure will come from within as well from without, for as Kaworu said, there were seven Seeds of Life—he and Rei were only two. The other five are out there, having faced much the same dilemmas as humanity, but unlike us, I see a world in which they've chosen Instrumentality, and they think all other intelligent beings are doomed to hurt each other unless they choose the same. The Seed of Life Eisheth sets its nihilistic gaze on Shinji and all of mankind in the companion story to "Before and After," _The Coming of the First Ones_.

I can't tell you when that's coming. I have a lot of other writing to do. If you enjoyed this story, I have other works in different series that you may wish to read. _Identity_ is a _Ranma 1/2_ novel trilogy that is my overarching main project. "The Coin" is a _Haruhi Suzumiya_ story I've already put some work in on, but publication of the first few chapters of that may be some weeks away. If neither appeal, then I hope to see you all for _First Ones_, whenever that may be. And please, if you've enjoyed this story, I'd love to hear from you with a review or another message. As always, in-depth commentary on the process of writing this chapter and my intentions for it are on my blog at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com, and updates on my writing (and other anime-related things) can be found on my twitter, [at]muphrid15.

Thank you for reading, and if ever you find yourself at a quandary in life, torn between the purpose others have given you and what you hope to achieve for yourself, I hope you'll keep in mind Rei's journey and take from her the knowledge that you can do the same.

Until next time,  
Muphrid

July 12, 2011


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